AC 17 (natural armor)
HP 105 (14d8 + 42; bloodied 52)
Speed 30 ft.
Proficiency +3; Maneuver DC 15
Saving Throws Con +6, Wis +5
Skills Arcana +6, Deception +6, Insight +5, Perception +5, Stealth +5
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages Abyssal, Common, Infernal
Curse. A creature touched by the hag’s claws is magically cursed for 30 days. While under this curse, the target has disadvantage on attack rolls made against the hag.
Evil. The hag radiates an Evil aura.
Magic Resistance. The hag has advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects.
ACTIONS
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) slashing damage, and the target is subject to the hag’s Curse trait.
Sleep Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: The target falls asleep for 4 hours or until it takes damage or is shaken awake. Once the hag successfully hits a target, it can’t make this attack again until it finishes a long rest.
Shapeshift. The hag magically polymorphs into a Small or Medium humanoid. Equipment it is carrying isn’t transformed. It retains its claws in any form. It has no true form and remains in its current form when it dies.
Planar Travel (3/Day). The hag magically enters the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane, or vice versa. Alternatively, the hag is magically transported to the Material Plane, Hell, or the Abyss, arriving within 10 miles of its desired destination.
Nightmare Haunting (1/Day). While on the Ethereal Plane, the hag magically touches a sleeping creature that is under the night hag’s Curse and is not protected by a magic circle or protection from evil and good spell or similar magic. As long as the touch persists, the target has terrible nightmares. If the nightmares last for 1 hour, the target gains no benefit from the rest, and its hit point maximum is reduced by 5 (1d10) until the curse ends. If this effect reduces the target’s hit points maximum to 0, the target dies and the hag captures its soul. The reduction to the target’s hit point maximum lasts until removed by greater restoration or similar magic.
Combat
The night hag hits as many creatures as possible with its claws and then escapes to the Ethereal Plane. Its goal in combat isn’t to kill but to curse. It returns later to haunt victims of its curse.
When a night hag reduces a lone creature to 0 hit points with its claws, it often knocks the creature out rather than killing it. It prefers Nightmare Haunting to mere killing.
Names
Auntie Dear, Baba Chickenbone, Cousin Appleworm, Grandfather Widdershins, Grandmother Blackteeth, Granny Cradlecap, Mother Foxglove, Nana Longfinger
Legends and Lore
With an Arcana or Nature check, characters can learn the following:
DC 10 Despite their resemblance to humanoids, hags are fey creatures that can adopt a variety of forms, both male and female.
DC 15 Different types of hags exist, including green hags, sea hags, night hags, and winter hags. To increase their magical abilities, some hags gather together in covens.
DC 20 A hag may gain power over a victim by making a bargain with them, or by tricking them into various obligations or transgressions.
Banished from the faerie realm and robbed of their true forms, night hags can transform into any body except their original one. They infiltrate humanoid communities, either by frequently swapping bodies or maintaining a single, hidden identity. A night hag might live alongside villagers as a farmer or alchemist, hunt city streets every evening in a new guise, or corrupt a stern witch hunter and adopt their identity as its own. Whatever form the night hag takes, it cannot transform its claws, and so most wear gloves or otherwise conceal their hideous hands.
Fiendish Corruptors. Disavowed by fey creatures for consorting with fiends, night hags live on the Material and Lower Planes and have a fiend-like appetite for mortal souls. A night hag uses its claws to lay curses on its enemies and on any creature that makes a bargain with it. Like a malcubus, a night hag visits its cursed victims from the Ethereal Plane, granting them troubling dreams, slowly draining them of vitality, and eventually stealing their souls.
1 Baking gingerbread men. The gingerbread men are alive and have the statistics of skeletons
2 Churning butter in a talking churn
3 Crooning and fondling some ordinary trinket, such as a spoon
4 Looking for help against a stronger monster
5 Eating sweets from a squirming bag
6 Greets you as royalty and promises the crown you deserve if you follow its advice
7 Jarring preserves: brains, black pudding, hope, and so on
8 Making a pot of tea
9 Sharpening its teeth on a millstone
10 Speaking to its mirror
11 Sweeping with a broom of flying
12 With a human child (kidnapped? a young hag? the spitting image of a prince or princess?)
Wilderness Signs
1 A beautiful cozy cottage
2 A tumbledown shack on stilts
3 Frogs, ravens, and rodents seem to be watching you
4 A house made of something strange, like bones or swords
Settlement Signs
1 People worried that their businesses are under a curse
2 Paranoid people who live in fear of something they won’t name
3 A black cat seeming to lead you somewhere
4 Certain people insist you visit a specific potion seller
Underground Signs
1 The whistle of a teakettle
2 The smell of boiling soup
3 Cackling or chanting
4 Cozy furniture
Many hags live in the dangerous wilds near settled lands, preying on those who venture too far from home. Green hags prefer forests and swamps, while sea hags live underwater and winter hags dwell in mountains or tundra. Night hags can be found anywhere, from populous cities to the depths of Hell.
CR 0–2 sea hag
Treasure 60 gp, 3 hard candies (each acts as potion of water breathing )
CR 3–4 sea hag with coralfish (see cockatrice), giant crab , merrow , or reef shark ; green hag ; green hag with cat , giant frog , giant owl , grimalkin , or scarecrow ; coven sea hag
Treasure gold and mother-of-pearl monocle (250 gp), talking iron cauldron (its advice grants advantage when cooking or crafting potions), 3 potions of healing
CR 5–10 sea hag with chuul , killer whale , merrow mage , water elemental , or will-o-wisp ; green hag with basilisk , corrupted unicorn , peryton , scarecrow harvester , or will-o-wisp ; night hag ; night hag with doppelganger , imp , malcubus , phase monster , or shadow demon ; coven night hag ; winter hag ; coven winter hag
Treasure pearl earrings (250 gp), 13 signet rings from different noble families (50 gp each), set of 16 tiny animated chess pieces (casting dispel magic on one returns it to its true form, a humanoid guard , knight , mountain dwarf defender , noble , or priest ), potion of water breathing , 2 philters of love in heart-shaped bottles
CR 11–16 night hag with chain devil , gorgon , invisible stalker , ogre mage , or 2 malcubi ; winter hag with frost giant , troll , tundra chimera , or wyvern ; 3 coven sea hags ; 3 coven green hags ; coven sea hag , coven night hag , and coven green hag
Treasure 1,500 gp, fiendish gold idol (750 gp), expert miniature portrait of a young woman (250 gp), living yarn ball (acts as rope of entanglement ), potion of poison , broom of flying
CR 17–22 winter hag with 5 elktaurs (see centaur), ogres , skeletal champions , snowmen (see scarecrow), or winter wolves ; 3 coven night hags
Treasure 20 rare books (250 gp each), gold bird cage (2,500 gp) containing 3 cockatoos ( polymorphed humans; can speak and ask for help), 6 potions of animal friendship , spell scrolls of contact other plane and mass suggestion , winged cloak (acts as combined mantle of spell resistance and wings of flying but requires only 1 attunement slot)
CR 23–30 3 coven winter hags
Treasure diamond ring (7,500 gp), diamond necklace (7,500 gp), diamond earrings (7,500 gp), 3 brooms of flying , crystal ball , mirror of life trapping , frozen wishing well (if the water is thawed, it acts as a ring of three wishes )