Shapechanger. The crone can use its action to polymorph into a Small or Medium female humanoid or back into its true form. While in humanoid form, its statistics, are the same. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. It reverts to its true form if it dies.
Limited Magic Immunity. The crone is immune to spells of 5th level or lower unless it wishes to be affected. It has advantage on saving throws against all other spells and magical effects.
Magic Attacks. The crone's weapon attacks are magical.
Innate Spellcasting. The crone's innate spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 18). The crone can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: speak with animals
2/day each: grasping vine, insect plague, polymorph
1/day: control weather, shapechange
Multiattack. The crone uses its Mistress of Hexes and makes two claw attacks.
Claw (Crone Form Only). Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit 16 (3d6 + 5) slashing damage.
Mistress of Hexes. The crone magically forces a creature it can see within 60 feet of it to make a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw. If it fails, it comes under one of the following effects, chosen by the crone:
1. Boiling Blood. The blood of the target starts boiling in its veins. It becomes incapacitated with excruciating pain until the end of the crone's next turn. At the beginning of the creature's turn, it takes 10 (3d6) fire damage and 10 (3d6) necrotic damage.
2. Doomed. The target has disadvantage on attack rolls and has vulnerability to one type of damage of the crone's choice. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success
3. Leech. The target takes 10 (3d6) necrotic damage at the beginning of its turn, and the crone regains hit points equal to that amount. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
4. Twisted. The hex twists horribly the appearance of the target. The target is blinded and deafened, and its Charisma score becomes 1 until the curse is removed by a remove curse spell or similar magic.
Call Chort (1/Day). The crone summons 1 chort. A summoned creature appears in an unoccupied space within 60 feet of the crone, and acts as an ally of its crone. It remains for 1 minute, until it or its crone dies, or until the crone dismisses it as an action.
The crone 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 crone regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Claw. The crone makes one claw attack.
Mistress of Hexes (Costs 2 Actions). The crone use its Mistress of Hexes power.
Cast a Spell (Costs 2 Actions). The crone cast a spell from its list of Innate Spellcasting (if any), using a daily use as normal.
Description
Crone
Sister crones, hand in hand, terrors of the sea and land, thus do go about, about: thrice to thine and thrice to mine, and thrice again, to make up nine.”—Macveth, Act 1, Scene 3
Ancient Monstrosity. The isolated corners of our world harbor creatures older than humans, older than academies and mages, older even than elves and dwarves. The crones are such creatures. No one knows their true names, nor what breed of monstrosity they, in fact, are. Folk say they were four at first. The Mother, She-Who-Knows, the Lady of the Wood, came here from a faraway land and, since she suffered terribly from loneliness, she made daughters out of dirt and water.
Life-saving Parricide. A long, long time ago the Mother was sole ruler of all of land. Her daughters brought her the people's requests and served as her voice. Each spring, sacrifices of grain, animals, and men were made to the Lady of the Wood on her special night. Yet as the years passed, the Lady of the Wood slipped deeper and deeper into madness. Her madness eventually spread over the land—men took to abandoning their homes and setting out into the bog, where they became food for beasts. Before long, the land was drowning in blood. The daughters saw their home nearing destruction and took it upon themselves to save it. When spring came once more, and with it the night sacrifices, they killed their mother and buried her into a bog. Her blood watered a mystical oak, and from then on the tree grew wholesome and hearty fruit for the people. As for the Lady's immortal soul, it refused to leave its beloved land, and so the daughters imprisoned it. To this day it lies trapped beneath the earth, where it thrashes about in powerless rage.
Earthly Goddesses. Common folk refer to the crones as "The Ladies of the Wood", “Norns”, or simply "The Good Ladies." The crones act as the true sovereigns of their land, whose inhabitants they help survive through harsh times in return for unquestioning obedience. In foul times, when plague or famine steals the harvest, when the gods have abandoned them, when the mighty do not care for their fate, the folks turn to the Ladies for help.
Fiendish Appetite. In the more ghastly legends, crones are said to know over a dozen recipes for human soup. During their sabbath, crones truly feed on human flesh, cooking men and children in infernal pots spiced with root from the cursed trees growing in their lair. In whispered tales—for if they spoke too loudly the crones would hear it—villagers speak of the tribute demanded in the form of human ears. The ears hung from trees, allowing the crones, through the use of primeval magic, to hear all that happened in their land.
Elder Magic. Crones wield powerful magic, but one different from that of mages. They draw power from the elements and destiny and are bound to the land in which they live. The crones can hear everything that happens in their woods, predict the future, twist the threads of human lives and bring blessings as well as curses. The crones seem for all intents and purposes to be immortal. Magic elixirs keep them from aging and allow them to take the appearance of young women. These elixirs and their mystical ties to the land in which they live also give them supernatural strength and vitality.
Many Sisters. Although theoretically born from the same mother, crones do not necessarily like or even work with each other. Truly enough, some form covens, gather for great sabbath and maintain correspondence with distant sisters, but it is equally true that some hate each other viscerally and wage war against their brethren over feuds so ancient that none but them can remember why. The simple truth is that crones are very unique individuals, and that no simple rule can define their complex relationships.
Primeval Crone
Primeval crones have an unparalleled connection with their land: They are aware of anything that happens in it thanks to their many crow spies and the ears they hang in trees. They can control the weather and command to beasts throughout their demesne. They can tame the wildest of monstrosities and make them do their bidding. They have a strong affinity with Fiends and Chorts and use them to destroy their enemy or seek the ones that attempt to escape their pact. When they curse a creature, they usually turn it into mindless beast, afflicting it with lycanthropy or driving it insane.
A Gift from the Ladies
If one listens to tales and stories, you will learn how to plea for help from a crone; such help always comes at a price, but the ladies have the reputation to always keep their word. This is how one begs help from the Ladies: Find a child, young and innocent, and search out the Ladies' shrine—that is where the Trail of Treats begins. Set the child off on the trail and it shall follow its sweet track and find the Good Ladies. The child will never want for anything ever again, for the Ladies are kind and generous. Standing before their shrine, pronounce your request and the Good Ladies will hear, for they see and hear all that takes place in their demesne. If you made the offering as it must be done, your supplication will be heard.
- Such boons may include but are not limited to: ability score improvements, new feats, or epic boons found in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (page 232). The gift lasts until the crone chooses to dismiss it or the crone dies. A wish spell can also end the pact.
- A creature that makes a pact with a crone gains a mystical brand somewhere on its body, the brand is unique to each crone. The crone can communicate through the person over any distance, even from another plane of existence, speaking through its mouth. Once per month, the crone may charm the creature as if using the gear spell. The creature automatically fails the saving throw to resist the spell, and it can’t be ended by any normal magic except for a wish spell, which also ends the pact.
Elder Curse
Simple curses are easily dealt with by clerics, druids and wizards, becoming nothing more than a temporary annoyance for the wielders of the faith and arcane. However, in ancient times, magic was expressing itself differently, demanding sacrifices to be tamed, powering itself on blood, life essence, and grievous trials. Elder curses tap into these ancient powers: a form of magic that is primal and raw, brutal and cruel. Such curses are not so easily dispelled and will resist most forms of magic. Nothing short of a wish spell can remove an elder curse but each elder curse also must have a single means of removing the curse with some deed that the DM designates:
- The elder curse must be casted by the crone as a ritual, taking an hour to perform. The effects can target one creature, without limit of distance or planar location, as long as the crone add a part of the target (strand of hair, nail clipping, blood, etc.) as a spell component, consumed during casting.
- The elder curse can duplicate the effects of a bestow curse, contagion, symbol, true polymorph, or even, if several crones partake in the ritual, a wish spell (Spell DC 18, +2 per crone performing the ritual after the first). Every crone involved in the ritual cannot use their innate spellcasting ability until they completed a short rest.
- The deed to lift the curse must be something that the target can accomplish within one year, assuming the task is undertaken immediately (burning all the spinning wheels in the kingdom, climbing the tallest mountain of the world, slaughter an entire bloodline...). Killing the crone doesn't end the curse.
- The target of the elder curse can have help accomplishing the deed. In fact, someone else can accomplish the deed as long as removing the curse is the expressed purpose of the deed. If someone who doesn’t know about the curse accomplishes the deed, the curse remains.
Lair and Lair Actions
A crone's lair isn't usually where she lives, but a mystical center of energy, usually tied to the death of its mother. It holds great significance and importance in the performing of her magic. Sabbaths, seasonal rites and other ceremonial sacrifices are held at the lair or in close vicinity.
Lair Actions
A crone's lair has all of the following effects in place:
- A crone can only cast an elder curse or control a creature that made a pact with her from within her lair.
- Creatures other than the crone can’t teleport into the lair or use portals and planar travel to enter the area, as though protected by a forbiddance spell.
- While inside her lair a crone is shielded against divination magic, as though protected by a nondetection spell.
Regional Effects
The region containing a crone lair is altered by the creature's presence, creating one or more of the following magical effects, based on the type of crone:
- Death Crone: Undead creatures lurk in the region. If the crone wishes so, humanoids dying in the region raise within 24 hours as foglets, drowners or other type of undead suiting the environment.
- Flesh Crone: Natural healing is greatly impeded in the region. When a character expands a Hit Dice to heal and obtains a "1", it cannot regain hit points by any mean until it completed a long rest or a remove curse spell ends the effect.If the [monster name] dies, these effects fade over the course of #d# days.
- Norn: People born in the area refuse to leave the region, tying their fate to the land. Any spell that can end a curse can remove this coercive effect.
- Primeval Crone: The crone can hear anything that is happening in the region through severed ears hanged in trees. Crow spies report any suspicious activity in the region to the crown.
When a crone is killed, its regional effects fades over 30 days.
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