D&D 5E dealing with a hag

[Unwise]

IMC a character did exactly this. His new eye though, did not allow her to see through it. It instead made him see the worst in everybody and everything. He got advantage on seeing through peoples lies, when he eventually discovered that he thought it was great, but as a DM I would describe everything to him in the most suspicious way possible "e.g. The little girl is playing with her dolly, she quickly glances at you when she thinks your back is turned, and catch a glimpse of a cunning intellect beyond a mere child, she smirks slyly and sings to her dolly in an eerie tone, you notice the doll is flayed in places."

In essence, a smile becomes a smirk, a glance becomes a glare, a slight pause in conversation becomes a troubled silence etc.

 

[AtomicPope]

As an aside, does this seem like something a hag would actually do?

Yes. The a Night Hag might want revenge. Charge the PC with hunting down the location of a thief (who has a Ring of Mind Shielding) that stole something magical. Capture the thief so the hag can steal his/her soul and trap the thief's soul forever in her Soul Bag, maybe later transfer the soul to a cursed item.

When the PC returns the Night Hag can use her Heartstone to heal his eye. That's a little hand-wavy for the power of a Heartstone but it makes for a better story.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=64790]AtomicPope[/MENTION]: In this case, she's a green hag. Aunty Wormtooth has helped the PCs out before. One came to her seeking a cure for his werewolf lycanthropy and then later returned to her seeking a way to restore his good looks after he'd been horribly burned by fire elementals. Now he's missing an eye and is hoping she can help him out there. After she offered him the magic eye, the player commented to me, "I'm beginning to feel like the fatted calf." Ha!

One of the other PCs went to Aunty Wormtooth when his sister died. He too had suffered horribly at the hands of fire cultists and wanted her to restore his good looks. She did so, and then he asked if she knew of any way to raise the dead. (There is no divine magic in my world.) She gave him some cryptic clues pointing to the Amber Temple, which I'm going to run as either a standalone adventure site or a lead-in to a truncated version of CoS (I haven't decided yet, but it's so tempting to have Strahd invite them to his castle after they enter his domain in search of the temple ...).

I'm thinking I might have the hag use her connection to the magic eye to encourage the PCs to accept the dark gifts in the temple. They are true heroes with good in their hearts and she wants to corrupt them.

 

[Sebastrd]

IMC a character did exactly this. His new eye though, did not allow her to see through it. It instead made him see the worst in everybody and everything. He got advantage on seeing through peoples lies, when he eventually discovered that he thought it was great, but as a DM I would describe everything to him in the most suspicious way possible "e.g. The little girl is playing with her dolly, she quickly glances at you when she thinks your back is turned, and catch a glimpse of a cunning intellect beyond a mere child, she smirks slyly and sings to her dolly in an eerie tone, you notice the doll is flayed in places."

In essence, a smile becomes a smirk, a glance becomes a glare, a slight pause in conversation becomes a troubled silence etc.

That sounds awesome! Nice work; I'll totally steal this at some point.

 

[barrowwight]

I plan on doing something similar in a Hag based campaign I have been working on. The hag eye though would let the hag influence the character while they slept ( Kind of a delayed suggestion spell) possibly even dominate person. She would start with odd stuff first and then more wicked as she gained more experience in influencing the character while they slept. Nothing alignment threatening but hoping to cause some paranoia and dread in the character who made the deal.

 

[Unwise]

@pukunui

That is the third time the guy has asked for help. I would play up the Power of Three in witch/hag folklore a lot. It is possible that accepting a gift from her a third time has some dire power, or allows her to view you as "hers" so whatever ancient pact was holding her back before does not now. The options are endless, but the important thing is to screw with the player by making the fact it is the third time feel really important to them.

If it were me, the hag would be so super excited to help him out. She would of refer to him as "my boy" "sonny" and "dear, precious one" all the time. She would stroke his face lovingly and say "what a handsome boy, what a good boy, what did those bad people do to you? Let momma Wormtooth fix it..." cradling his head to her scaley bossom while singing an eerie off-key lullaby should ensue at some point.

Yeah, I creep my players out.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This all sounds awesome.

Personally, I like the non-attunement eye that also gives darkvision.It allows the player to try and cover it to prevent her from spying, but if he wants to see in the dark he has to uncover it.

Even more evil, give it some detect magic charges, or identify. You can discover if these items are magical, but Wormtooth will know as well, do you take the risk? Something that really makes it a conflict.

Also, totally go Power of Three on them, not sure how, but Three times is a charm that has existed forever, and the fact they went to get their "good looks" restored, they totally deserve to get a whammy now or later.


This is so ripe with options I literally can't decide on a good one.

 

[aco175]

Why can't they take the eye and then kill the hag, provided that she is not surrounded by townsfolk she gets along with.

 

[Lanliss]

Why can't they take the eye and then kill the hag, provided that she is not surrounded by townsfolk she gets along with.

She has been helpful so far, seems like a bad idea to get rid of her. And probably even worse if she escapes, and you make an enemy of her.

 

[pukunui]

Also, they don't really know she's an evil hag. They think she's just an eccentric old witch.