#arch-hag

"Day 2: Pesta" © Gary Cadima, accessed on his DeviantArt here

[I guess this ended up as a theme week anyway. On the other side of the power scale of haggishness, here's the arch-hag from D&D 5.5e. There are a number of monsters new to that book that exist to expand high level foes beyond dragons and fiends, which I appreciate. The 5.5e arch-hag seems to have some logical inconsistencies that weren't hammered out in the editorial process. They have coven magic, like other hags do, and are depicted as three of them around a cauldron, but the flavor text stresses their self-interest and each one of them has a unique anathema. The one named arch-hag is Baba Yaga, but she works alone, not with a coven. The flavor text talks about them altering fate and changing reality... but their strongest ability is mass suggestion. So this version is rather more able to serve as a campaign villain in a game like Pathfinder, where there's less separation between mechanics and story. @abominationimperatrix suggested that arch-hags could correspond to other folkloric entities, which inspired me to make this one Pesta specifically.]

Arch-Hag CR 21 NE Monstrous Humanoid

This monstrous old woman towers almost twice human height. Her teeth are crooked and far too sharp, and her fingers are gnarled into claws. She is rail-thin and her skin is mottled and lumpy, with the appearance of boils and decay. Despite her appearance of great age, her movements are fluid and eyes keen.

The arch-hags are schemers and manipulators of the highest order, and their plots often span multiple planets and planes. Every arch-hag was once a hag of an ordinary variety, and over the course of centuries was able to advance themselves through rituals and strange secrets. The exact nature of these rituals varies from arch-hag to arch-hag, and may include supplicating to a deity, harnessing some source of planar power or absorbing the life essence of the other hags in her coven. No matter the route taken, arch-hags elevate beyond the need to draw on other hags for magical power and can cast all of the spells of a typical hag coven on their own. In addition, they serve as arcane patrons themselves for many witches, often through aliases and false identities. Even good witches might call on an arch-hag for magical power, advancing the hag’s strange and tangled goals in some minor way.

No two arch-hags have quite the same combat tactics, as they can all use different spells and hexes. That said, there are some similarities. Arch-hags prefer to use magic to battle rather than hand to hand combat. Almost every offensive action an arch-hag takes, from firing waves of lightning from its fingertips to countering spells to critical blows from their teeth and claws carries with it the threat of being cursed. An arch-hag can blink, twitch or snap its fingers in order to electrocute cursed targets in an instant, and often time this to disrupt spellcasting. And if an arch-hag is thwarted in combat, it not only leaves a spiteful curse on the victors, but is transported to a demiplane to rest, recover and plot revenge.

That being said, arch-hags are not exactly immortal. Each arch-hag has some anathema, an object that represents a personal flaw, nemesis or the antithesis of its patronage. These items do not directly harm the hag, but do allow it to be slain, and all arch-hags keep the exact nature of their anathema a deeply guarded secret. Some examples of anathemas might include the bones of the arch-hag’s first love, snow from the peaks of Heaven, or even the universe’s worst pun.

Sample Arch-Hag The statistics below represent Pesta, an arch-hag of disease and plague. Pesta uses diseases as weapons to alter the course of history, especially to kill likely heroes before they reach their full potential. She rarely deigns to visit the sites of her plagues herself, instead sending a charmed or loyal proxy in her place, disguised as a black-shawled old woman and infected with some manner of contagious illness. Legend has it that when she (or one of these proxies) carries a rake, some will be left alive in the plague’s wake, but if she carries a broom, all will be swept away to their final resting place. Pesta can use and grant spells from the Deception, Plague and Portents witch patrons. Pesta’s anathema is the branch of life.