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Rest Sidequests: Night Hag

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Tags: Wilderness, Dreams, Night Hag

Setup: Usually, when a group of PCs rest they set watches and don’t worry about attackers in dreams. Now they will! A night hag visits their camp, attempting to wear them down.

Encounters:

  • The night hag enters camp in her ethereal form. A PC on watch that can see ethereal forms has a chance to spot her entering.
  • The hag touches a first sleeping target and gives him or her bad dreams. A PC on watch who can see the ethereal plane can spot her if the PC isn’t in a tent. If the PC can’t see the ethereal or the PC is in a tent, the character on watch has a difficult chance to notice the change in the PCs sleep (the PC is restless, murmurs, etc.).
  • If the PC fails a saving throw (see the Night Hag stats for your game system or make a best guess), he or she will lose any benefits from that sleep and suffers other effects subject to your game system. The hag then visits each sleeping PC in turn.
  • Or, the hag may have a set of small objects (bracelets, brooches, etc.) that allow it to conjure several people into one dream.  In this dream, the hag forces the PCs to re-create their last battle. If they lose, the PCs lose any benefits from the rest and may suffer some other effects based on your game system. If a PC is awoken, that is one less PC to help with the dream. A PC can return to sleep in a time equal to how long they were awake. So if awoken for two rounds and then the PC decides to return to the dream, the PC can return to the dream in another two rounds (including the round the PC decided).
  • The night hag continues to do this each time the PCs sleep while they are in her realm until she decides they have been weakened enough to make a direct attack.  However, she would much prefer to capture an evil soul via nightmares if any character is evil.

Follow-up Ideas

  • Hags know each other. The PCs are now known to hags near and far.
  • The PCs are thanked by the forces of good in this forest, swamp, etc. They may be given knowledge or a boon by a non-evil creature (unicorn, dryad, etc.) of the area.