Quickleaf
Legend
My players made several deals with a night hag, knowing full well these deals might come back to bite them in the rear later. What deliciously evil twists spring to your mind? What unforeseen consequences might these deals have?
I'd love to step outside my usual DMing habits/assumptions and solicit creative ideas from the ENWorld brain trust.
Here are the deals that were made. The night hag in question is Widow Groat from my homebrewed Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Don't worry about not being familiar with the adventure – I can adapt pretty much anything to it.
1. Drop of Blood: The lizardfolk rogue/warlock PC gave drop of his blood in exchange for lifting curse on a NPC ally (Dragonbait, who in my campaign isn't a mute sidekick but a cursed survivor of Acererak devouring another world) – this will be used to make a clone of the PC as described in Tomb of Annihilation. I'm also open to other interesting evils the night hag might use lizardfolk blood for.
2. Mythological Diamond: The PCs gave up a formerly magical diamond – one of 3 diamonds in my game that are connected to an evil necromantic artifact called the Soulmonger (the diamond is a piece of the Primordial Diamond of Ubtao which was the template for all diamonds used to cast raise dead since Ubtao offered a diamond to the gods to save his favored queen). According to legend, this formerly magical diamond was formed from the corpse of a mythical dragon crushed under great pressure over millenia. This was in exchange for release of a captured adolescent aarakocra from Widow Groat's dungeon. I'm contemplating this boosting the Soulmonger once the PCs encounter it (maybe like an ioun stone of absorption?)...or helping the night hag find other diamonds connected to the Primordial Diamond of Ubtao...or conjuring a dracolich...
3. Eldritch Invocation: The lizardfolk PC sacrificed a portion of his patron's power to the night hag (sacrificing his future 5th level warlock's Eldritch Invocation) in exchange for an adamantine sickle. This will give Widow Groat an Eldritch Invocation of her choice when/if she confronts PCs again...open to suggestions about which eldritch invocation would be cool for a night hag.
4. Shamanic Vision: The lizardfolk PC also shared a very personal shamanic vision (pertaining to the lizardfolk deities Kecuala and Semuanya) in exchange for a star map tablet revealing the location of the "dead city" of Kuluth-Mar.
[SECTION]The Vision
5. Varied Treasures: The lizardfolk PC also gave up a potion of etherealness, an idol of Blibdoolpoolp (kuo-toa goddess), and Yaka's diary (jester of Forbidden City of Omu) in exchange for a petrified gecko (actually the god Semuanya tricked into mortal form and petrified...later restored with anti-petrification oil the party previously made from basilisks).
6. Skull of the Great Druid: The grung druid PC shared the location of the sentient skull of Manawabe the Great Druid of Chult (a reincarnating archdruid) and instructions on how to awaken the skull, in exchange for a bone dice set (cursed!) and a withered purple grung hand doubling as a ring stand (The Hand of Vecna perhaps?).
7. Kaverin Ebonhand's Prosthetic Ebony Hands: The goblin paladin PC gave up Kaverin Ebonhand's advanced prosthetic ebony hands in exchange for mithral sutures allegedly used to stitch his god Meriadar back together.
8. Marriage: The goblin PC also gave his hand in marriage in exchange for a mask of King Omek of Omu that revealed Omek's last vision before death (getting into an argument with his engineer Gorra over the effectiveness of Gorra's traps to defend the city, which led to an infuriated Gorra pushing Omek over the parapets).
9. Location of a Lich's Phylactery: The goblin PC also revealed the location of a lich's phylactery that the party previously learned (the Fortress of Conclusion at the edge of the Negative Energy Plane – from AD&D Return to the Tomb of Horrors) in exchange for a sentient lich's skull the party began with but lost during the course of the game (and through a hilarious story had ended up on the night hag's shelves).
I'd love to step outside my usual DMing habits/assumptions and solicit creative ideas from the ENWorld brain trust.
Here are the deals that were made. The night hag in question is Widow Groat from my homebrewed Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Don't worry about not being familiar with the adventure – I can adapt pretty much anything to it.
1. Drop of Blood: The lizardfolk rogue/warlock PC gave drop of his blood in exchange for lifting curse on a NPC ally (Dragonbait, who in my campaign isn't a mute sidekick but a cursed survivor of Acererak devouring another world) – this will be used to make a clone of the PC as described in Tomb of Annihilation. I'm also open to other interesting evils the night hag might use lizardfolk blood for.
2. Mythological Diamond: The PCs gave up a formerly magical diamond – one of 3 diamonds in my game that are connected to an evil necromantic artifact called the Soulmonger (the diamond is a piece of the Primordial Diamond of Ubtao which was the template for all diamonds used to cast raise dead since Ubtao offered a diamond to the gods to save his favored queen). According to legend, this formerly magical diamond was formed from the corpse of a mythical dragon crushed under great pressure over millenia. This was in exchange for release of a captured adolescent aarakocra from Widow Groat's dungeon. I'm contemplating this boosting the Soulmonger once the PCs encounter it (maybe like an ioun stone of absorption?)...or helping the night hag find other diamonds connected to the Primordial Diamond of Ubtao...or conjuring a dracolich...
3. Eldritch Invocation: The lizardfolk PC sacrificed a portion of his patron's power to the night hag (sacrificing his future 5th level warlock's Eldritch Invocation) in exchange for an adamantine sickle. This will give Widow Groat an Eldritch Invocation of her choice when/if she confronts PCs again...open to suggestions about which eldritch invocation would be cool for a night hag.
4. Shamanic Vision: The lizardfolk PC also shared a very personal shamanic vision (pertaining to the lizardfolk deities Kecuala and Semuanya) in exchange for a star map tablet revealing the location of the "dead city" of Kuluth-Mar.
[SECTION]The Vision
- In his vision, the lizardfolk PC saw an egg shimmering like the night sky, reflecting and warping space around it, the low boom of thunder in the background.
- His reflection was visible in the egg’s surface.
- Amid the sound of flapping wings and wind, the egg was struck by lightning and it cracked open, revealing it was empty!
- However, a constellation of an archaeopteryx (bird-like dinosaur which is a symbol of Kecuala in my game) had appeared in the night sky and was reflected on the shell's oyster-like interior.
- Where the constellation's eye would be, the red Serpent Star flickered.
- Gecko footprints glowing like star-light lead from the egg across dark waters and into the jungle. Then the vision ended.
5. Varied Treasures: The lizardfolk PC also gave up a potion of etherealness, an idol of Blibdoolpoolp (kuo-toa goddess), and Yaka's diary (jester of Forbidden City of Omu) in exchange for a petrified gecko (actually the god Semuanya tricked into mortal form and petrified...later restored with anti-petrification oil the party previously made from basilisks).
6. Skull of the Great Druid: The grung druid PC shared the location of the sentient skull of Manawabe the Great Druid of Chult (a reincarnating archdruid) and instructions on how to awaken the skull, in exchange for a bone dice set (cursed!) and a withered purple grung hand doubling as a ring stand (The Hand of Vecna perhaps?).
7. Kaverin Ebonhand's Prosthetic Ebony Hands: The goblin paladin PC gave up Kaverin Ebonhand's advanced prosthetic ebony hands in exchange for mithral sutures allegedly used to stitch his god Meriadar back together.
8. Marriage: The goblin PC also gave his hand in marriage in exchange for a mask of King Omek of Omu that revealed Omek's last vision before death (getting into an argument with his engineer Gorra over the effectiveness of Gorra's traps to defend the city, which led to an infuriated Gorra pushing Omek over the parapets).
9. Location of a Lich's Phylactery: The goblin PC also revealed the location of a lich's phylactery that the party previously learned (the Fortress of Conclusion at the edge of the Negative Energy Plane – from AD&D Return to the Tomb of Horrors) in exchange for a sentient lich's skull the party began with but lost during the course of the game (and through a hilarious story had ended up on the night hag's shelves).
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