D&D 5E I need a big bad for a campaign

[generic]

the green hag was sacrificing children (or whatever evil thing) in an attempt to keep an evil stronger evil thing at bay. Now the imprisoned dragon/vampire/fiend etc is free!

LOVE IT!

 

[Ancalagon]

LOVE IT!

Thank you

I know it's not exactly what you asked but an idea like that is too good not to share.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using EN World mobile app

 

[ccs]

You don't have to have a complete lv 1-20 epic in mind or drawn up from the get go.

Just because you dealt with a Hag & her cult up to lv 3 shouldn't mean that your locked into dealing with it for the next 17 lvs.

Start with your Hag adventure, take note of the characters & back stories your players come up with, pay attention to what the players say/do during play, & work from there.
Later on? Maybe introduce something related to the Hag adventure if a good idea presents itself.

 

[Oofta]

So many options...

• The hag is a lackey, working for someone else.
• The hag is actually far more powerful than she seems, far above her appearance by foiling her plans reveals who she really is so she leaves it to her minions to kill the annoying pest adventurers.
• The hag was a counter-balance to another even more evil BBEG. The power vacuum left by her death leaves an opening for someone else.
• Death is not the end. The hag makes a deal with someone or some thing and comes back even more powerful than before (some sort of banshee variant?)
• It was all part of a plan. The hag was actually a cursed high fey, the person that cursed her could not kill her directly so had to trick the adventurers into killing her.
• The sisterhood is not happy. The group killed their junior member and new recruit, now they are intent on hunting the group down
• Now for something completely different - the new BBEG has nothing to do with the hag, but the party proved competent so someone recruits them to do something else.

And so on and so forth.

 

[Slit518]

The hag could be of could of been a false image of the real hag. Something similar to a Clone or Simulacrum spell, but instead it's an illusionary extension of the hag herself, able to deal a modicum of damage the real full force hag can deal.

 

[MaximusArael020]

You could potentially have one of the members of the society work to resurrect the hag. They go through several avenues to acquire the requisite materials, spells, and sacrifices to bring her back. She can come back and disappoint the member of the society, disenfranchising him in some way. This member then works to gain power through magic and alchemy to gain enough power to themselves carry out the ideals and directives of that society (raise a demon, terrorize a city, etc). Then go from there.