Monster of the Week #18

 This week we are sticking to the theme of witches!

The Monster of the Week is A Night Hag. Many of you who have played D&D, Pathfinder or any fantasy RPG have likely came across this exact (or very similar) creature.

Nighthags in D&D a slightly harder than their counterpart hags, and are by nature, a little more insidious too,

If you're Green Hag is the stereotyped evil witch, the Nighthag is the cosmic counterpart. These creatures terrorise victims in their sleep, with the sole purpose of corrupting them to the point where they can inflict evil in the waking world. They do this by poisoning their dreams and breaking their victim's psyche down until they eventually die - which is when the Nighthag can catch their soul in their Soul Bag. To perform this e devilish desires, the Soul Bag must be crafted out of the flesh of a humanoid too, just in case the previous acts mentioned weren't grim enough.

Nighthags have a Hearthstone that lets them phase into the Ethereal Plane to perform these acts of terror, so one could be stuck to a PC or NPC for days or weeks before they even notice. This is what makes the Nighthag an interesting, and much more insidious addition to the list of hags in D&D.

Mechanically, a Night Haunting can be done once per day, and it terrorises the target. For players, it stops them gaining any benefits of a long rest, AND reduces their HP by 5 (or 1d10). This can be crippling for casters, and will start to make your party wonder what on earth is terrorising them. Once the target's HP hits zero, their soul is transferred to the Soul Bag. It is a harrowing event for players to learn that their rest did nothing for them, and that they taken damage. This unique trait of the Nighthag makes her a really fun foe to drop in a campaign every while.

My players were haunted by one of these recently, and their conspiracy theories helped me create new side-shoots for them to investigate in the future. There's nothing quite like existential horror for your PCs, especially if they are familiar with other horror based games.

Mechanically, the Nighthag is resistant to most things, and gets advantage on magic based saving throws. For a CR6 creature, they can really hit you hard at lower levels. Between the heavy hitting, strong spell casting, and all of the aforementioned abilities, a Nighthag could be a great inclusion into your game as a mini boss or be the reason for a side quest. For example, the Etherealness ability (which lets the nighthag go into the Material Plane to torment a victim), would be a great reveal for those who can see into the Ethereal Plane - allowing them to see a ghastly apparition terrorising their prey. This could lead all sorts of places in a side quest.

Anyway, that's all for this week! Another witch, and not quite as scary as Baba Lysaga, but definitely a daunting enemy for a lower level party - with more than enough tools in their belt to give your players a good challenge.

Thanks for having a read, everyone, and as usual, if you found anything interesting or have your own thoughts, please let us know in the comments!

Thanks again, and good gaming!

-KJ