New Monsters: More Horrific Hags
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Death Hag, Eldritch Hag, Feral Hag, Withering Hag
You didn’t think we were done with the last four hags we previewed, did you?
With all the forbidden, shadowy, and unseemly content in The Impermissicon, the upcoming compendium, it should be no surprise that it features new hags among its many monsters. We are previewing all four of the new hags from the compendium, from the powerful death hag to the lowly withering hags that often accompany her. All hags make for excellent NPCs and plot elements in an adventure or campaign, and these hags are no exception!
The first hag shown is the Death Hag. This necromancy-focused hag leverages the power of dead NPCs to become an indispensable plot element for certain kinds of stories & adventures by bringing those NPCs back to life as villains. She serves wonderfully as a beginning or an end to an adventure, either bringing a new villain to the stage, or serving as the ultimate big bad of the adventure herself!
The Eldritch Hag has been to the Far Realm and stayed there long enough to change. Now that she’s back, she wants to bring the Far Realm with her. Eldritch hags allow for interesting urban stories featuring false memories and unreliable witnesses, opening up a new dimension in Noir and Mystery-styled games that have grown too powerful for more straight-forward mysteries. When you use these hags, be sure to amp up the creepiness in your descriptions. When a player character finally enrages her with spellcasting, make them feel the tension!
The Feral Hag plays wonderfully in adventures featuring lycanthropes, especially if the setting has an abundance of animals (either wild or domesticated) for the hag to have fun with. This hag makes constant use of her familiar along with other charmed animals, allowing her to vex the players from far away. But her ability to transform into an animal herself may be the most important, since it allows her to hide in ways that a normal hag could not. On the other hand, if multiple PCs are infected with her disease, that will quickly become the hag’s most important feature in the game. One excellent example of a feral hag is the witch from Brave.
Withering Hags are difficult to create, since regular necromancy only works on humanoid corpses. But dedicated NPCs (or PCs with the create undead spell and a very lenient DM) can work the proper rituals to raise any dead hag, from a death hag to a sea hag, as a withering hag. These undead hags utilize a couple of mechanics that aren’t often seen in 5th edition monsters, making them a dangerous threat even to very high-level characters: they can negate healing with their Foul Aura, and their attacks can magically age their target, potentially killing the foe without even reducing its hit points to 0. A DM should always use these hags sparingly. No more than three at a time should keep things reasonable — and flavorful, too! Put them wherever things are dusty, forgotten, and a bit mad about it.
There are three hags in the Monster Manual and two hags in Volo’s Guide to Monsters (which also features additional rules for more powerful hags with lair actions and regional effects). Our first compendium has four elemental hags, and the upcoming compendium has the four hags previewed here. Finally, the last compendium, Legends of Prestige and Prowess, will contain the last three, bringing the total number of hags to sixteen (fifteen living hags plus the undead withering hag)! With D&D Unleashed, there’s truly a hag for every kind of setting, adventure, or campaign.
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Death Hag, Eldritch Hag, Feral Hag, Withering Hag
