Quickleaf
Legend
What magic items would be well-suited for the night hag Widow Groat's personal lair? I'm open to homebrew items, older D&D items, DMG items, or items from other published resources.
So far, the PCs have found a little treasure and minimal magic items (scrolls & potions, a cape of the mountebank, and a homebrew Lifeblade). Based on their feedback ("give us more!"), and my own reading of the scarcity of magic items in Tomb of Annihilation, I'd like to include some magic items in her lair. One player requested goggles of night, so I'm incorporating those. Not counting a bunch of art objects and story items, here's what I have so far for magic items...
[SBLOCK=The Party, 5th level]
Drake Freeman NG human archaeologist Bard (college of lore) 5
E'kama Natombe N human outlander Ranger (gloom stalker) 5
Koko LN grung sage Druid (circle of land, swamp) 5
"Pallas Ravenwood" CG half-elf hermit Sorcerer (draconic) 2, Bard (college of lore) 3
Scomett 'Nilc N lizardfolk hermit Rogue (swashbuckler) 5
Yargle Sharptooth LN goblin knight Paladin (oathbreaker) 5[/SBLOCK]
My group is on the trail of a "witch" (actually a night hag, but they don't realize it yet) who cursed an illiterate NPC with inability to speak. The NPC has information the players want so they're looking for this "witch" to undo the curse. The witch is Widow Groat from Tomb of Annihilation, a night hag with coins over her eyes & ants swarming from her skull, an expert in the art of making soulbags and in cahoots with the BBEG Acererak. I've imagined her as a consummate bargainer, obsessed with the idea of love but not actually understanding it, infatuated with Acererak, and local legends referring to her as a "euthanasia witch."
Her lair is the abandoned palace of a divine necromancer named Ras Nsi (who sold his soul to the yuan-ti), a ruined structure that once was a moving palace on the backs of giant turtle skeletons. When Ras Nsi fell from divine favor, he lost control of his army of undead which swarmed the palace and surrounding jungle, turning them into a wasteland of blighted trees. Widow Groat now occupies it, using it as a secret sanctuary away from the prying eyes of her coven sisters, and the interior is full of foul knickknacks.
The players might trade with her... for starters, they want the curse lifted on this silenced NPC... while Widow Groat desires several things:
[SBLOCK=Full Description of the Lair]Uplifting stone tiles and toppled pillars are visible from the light coming through cracks in the walls and ceiling of this 25-foot-tall throne room. In the center of the room is a circular stone table engraved with serpentine pictograms, and overlooking it is a throne of human bone topped with a skull merging traits of triceratops, dragon, and demon. A pair of hideous reliefs frame each entry arch: men in flowing cloaks wearing fanged skull masks and reaching out from the wall as if in torment. Everything smells of formaldehyde and pungent herbs. The east side of the throne room is cluttered with all manner of foul knicknacks…
Macabre prosthetics and a polished Omuan mask line the walls, with a ragged burgundy curtain covering a hallway to the east; intermittent winds cause it to blow aside just enough to reveal a spiked iron door at the end of the hall. From the ceiling hang shrunken heads, marionettes, and dried herbs; while spaced apart on the floor are a fancy wood jewelry box, a circle of spell components, and a serpentine pedestal holding a glass orb.
A sloped desk made of petrified swamp wood is illuminated by melted black candles; in addition to ink, quill, and paper, the desk holds several books, a ledger, a dinosaur hide scroll case, a clay tablet, bone dice, a cracked whispering stone, even a vaguely familiar skull. Shelves made from shelf mushrooms and overgrown by a grape vine hold a dark red potion, a wine bottle, a withered grung hand wearing two rings (one of which glows with dim violet light), a miniature museum, a petrified gecko, a pouch of coins, and a facedown handmirror.[/SBLOCK]
So far, the PCs have found a little treasure and minimal magic items (scrolls & potions, a cape of the mountebank, and a homebrew Lifeblade). Based on their feedback ("give us more!"), and my own reading of the scarcity of magic items in Tomb of Annihilation, I'd like to include some magic items in her lair. One player requested goggles of night, so I'm incorporating those. Not counting a bunch of art objects and story items, here's what I have so far for magic items...
- An Ornskull, which is a trap that's bonded to a throne with sovereign glue, so probably not an immediate item the PCs can take, but who knows!
- A Spell Scroll of locate object
- Veil of the Fiery Night, which is just goggles of night with some more story & quirks, worn by the hag in her alternate form
- Silver Bell, which acts as an up-leveled scroll of toll the dead
- Wand of Barbed Missiles, which is just a wand of magic missiles, but they remove the requirement that you must see the target, allowing you to "blindfire" at invisible/hidden creatures as long as you have line of effect, but if you guess a creature's position incorrectly, missiles aimed at that empty space rebound back at you
- Scroll of Hidden Byways, which randomly reveals a new teleportation circle sigil sequence in Chult every week, turning to dust once three have been successfully learned by the wielder
- Potion of Dreaming, risky potion revealing the night hag's own worst nightmare
[SBLOCK=The Party, 5th level]
Drake Freeman NG human archaeologist Bard (college of lore) 5
E'kama Natombe N human outlander Ranger (gloom stalker) 5
Koko LN grung sage Druid (circle of land, swamp) 5
"Pallas Ravenwood" CG half-elf hermit Sorcerer (draconic) 2, Bard (college of lore) 3
Scomett 'Nilc N lizardfolk hermit Rogue (swashbuckler) 5
Yargle Sharptooth LN goblin knight Paladin (oathbreaker) 5[/SBLOCK]
My group is on the trail of a "witch" (actually a night hag, but they don't realize it yet) who cursed an illiterate NPC with inability to speak. The NPC has information the players want so they're looking for this "witch" to undo the curse. The witch is Widow Groat from Tomb of Annihilation, a night hag with coins over her eyes & ants swarming from her skull, an expert in the art of making soulbags and in cahoots with the BBEG Acererak. I've imagined her as a consummate bargainer, obsessed with the idea of love but not actually understanding it, infatuated with Acererak, and local legends referring to her as a "euthanasia witch."
Her lair is the abandoned palace of a divine necromancer named Ras Nsi (who sold his soul to the yuan-ti), a ruined structure that once was a moving palace on the backs of giant turtle skeletons. When Ras Nsi fell from divine favor, he lost control of his army of undead which swarmed the palace and surrounding jungle, turning them into a wasteland of blighted trees. Widow Groat now occupies it, using it as a secret sanctuary away from the prying eyes of her coven sisters, and the interior is full of foul knickknacks.
The players might trade with her... for starters, they want the curse lifted on this silenced NPC... while Widow Groat desires several things:
- N’kanyezi, a coure eladrin in an astrolabe the PCs found in Mezro
- Diamond from Mezro (which the PCs identified as a former soul gem)
- “Ownership” of a geas (both Drake & Koko are geased by a death knight)
- Memory of true love (intended for E’kama)
- The given or false name of someone not going by their given name (intended for Pallas)
- Knowledge of the “life relics” of Chult (items which can delay Death Curse in creatures)
- Knowledge of where lich’s phylactery is located (PCs happen to know location of a lich's phylactery!)
[SBLOCK=Full Description of the Lair]Uplifting stone tiles and toppled pillars are visible from the light coming through cracks in the walls and ceiling of this 25-foot-tall throne room. In the center of the room is a circular stone table engraved with serpentine pictograms, and overlooking it is a throne of human bone topped with a skull merging traits of triceratops, dragon, and demon. A pair of hideous reliefs frame each entry arch: men in flowing cloaks wearing fanged skull masks and reaching out from the wall as if in torment. Everything smells of formaldehyde and pungent herbs. The east side of the throne room is cluttered with all manner of foul knicknacks…
Macabre prosthetics and a polished Omuan mask line the walls, with a ragged burgundy curtain covering a hallway to the east; intermittent winds cause it to blow aside just enough to reveal a spiked iron door at the end of the hall. From the ceiling hang shrunken heads, marionettes, and dried herbs; while spaced apart on the floor are a fancy wood jewelry box, a circle of spell components, and a serpentine pedestal holding a glass orb.
A sloped desk made of petrified swamp wood is illuminated by melted black candles; in addition to ink, quill, and paper, the desk holds several books, a ledger, a dinosaur hide scroll case, a clay tablet, bone dice, a cracked whispering stone, even a vaguely familiar skull. Shelves made from shelf mushrooms and overgrown by a grape vine hold a dark red potion, a wine bottle, a withered grung hand wearing two rings (one of which glows with dim violet light), a miniature museum, a petrified gecko, a pouch of coins, and a facedown handmirror.[/SBLOCK]
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