Night Hag: Temptress of Darkness

Well… at least this one isn’t holding corpses. Instead, she’s holding a disembodied soul! Because that’s just so much more pleasant!

Lore: Predators of Dreams

Night hag’s love nothing more than seeing the good turn to evil. To see lovers become obsessive or the kind to become cruel. This cruelty lead them to be banished from the Feywild to Hades, where they became fiends. Since then, they’ve spread all across the Lower Planes.

While one might sleep, a night hag might intrude upon their dreams in an ethereal form. Those with Truesight may be able to see them as they straddle their prey. The hag will fill their victim’s mind with with doubts and fears to trick them into performing acts of evil in the true world. They’ll continue to do this night after night until their victim dies. When that happens, they’ll trap their soul within a bag to transport into Hades.

This is some great lore! There’s a ton of fun stuff you can do to screw with your players! Consistently haunt their nightmares with some creepy imagery! Or perhaps make a familiar NPC the victim of that and demonstrate him slowly descending into madness, so the players have to figure out what’s going on and stop it before it’s too late! You’ve got a ton of fun options as a DM!

Design: Where did the horns come from?

I don’t know why I’m so fixated on the horns. But… where did the horns come from? Am I overthinking this? Probably. Moving on.

This is a perfectly fine design. It isn’t as creepy as the green hag, but it’s definitely a chilling look. That malevolent grin, her witch doctor aesthetic, the soul of her victim hovering over her hand, it all comes together into something truly creepy.

Is it especially creative? Not particularly. It’s not the most generic witch-looking monster ever, sure. But it’s a far cry from the higher up creatures on this list.

Stats: Of Nightmares and Death

Despite what you may think, the night hag is far from a weak monster. It has a fairly high AC and HP just within triple digits. Not only that, but it’s resistant to cold, fire, and all melee made without magic or silver weapons. Also, you can’t charm it. Not that you’d want to.

Oh, what am I saying? Of course you would.

It also has a few spells to use. These are:

At will: detect magic, magic missile
2/day each: plane shift (self only), ray of enfeeblement, sleep

On top of that, it can use Change Shape to… change shapes. Or it could use Etherealness to step into either the Ethereal Plane or Material Plane, depending on which it currently stands in. This can make catching the hag tricky, if not impossible.

It’s most dangerous ability is Nightmare Haunting, which it can only use once a day. With this, the night hag can produce nightmares in a sleeping victim upon touching them. If the dreams last more than a nightmare, the victim will take no benefit from their rest and its total HP drops by 5(1d10). Should this effect reduce their total HP to 0, the victim will die.

Also, the hag has claws. They do decent damage.

With this monster, it’s more about the buildup to the encounter than the fight itself. How do the players deal with the health-depleting nightmares? How do they find the hag itself? This is the actual boss fight, not the battle itself. Because the fight itself is more like a basic slugfest with the occasional spell.

Placement

This is definitely a very strong monster. It has great lore and it makes for a fun encounter. Yes, the boss fight itself is a bit straight-forward and the design is only okay. But still, it’s a strong one.

With all that in mind, let’s put the Night Hag on the Best of the Bestiary!

1. Beholder
2. Death Tyrant
3. Dragon Turtle
4. Green Dragons
5. Red Dragons
6. Blue Dragons
7. Black Dragons
8. White Dragons
9. Silver Dragons
10. Couatl
11. Behir
12. Aboleth
13. Bronze Dragons
14. Brass Dragons
15. Copper Dragons
16. Gold Dragons
17. Chuul
18. Gibbering Mouther
19. Chimera
20. Death Knight
21. Fomorian
22. Bone Devil
23. Dracolich
24. Faerie Dragon
25. Night Hag <——————-
26. Green Hag
27. Ankheg
28. Storm Giant
29. Hill Giant
30. Empyrean
31. Efreeti
32. Grimlock
33. Dao
34. Cloud Giant
35. Drow (all four of ’em)
36. Shadow Demon
37. Marilith
38. Drider
39. Aarackockra
40. Azer
41. Demilich
42. Spectator
43. Marid
44. Cambion
45. Fire Giant
46. Animated Armor
47. Banshee
48. Basilisk
49. Yochlol
50. Bulette
51. Cloaker
52. Darkmantle
53. Doppelganger
54. Ghoul and Ghast
55. Ettin
56. Pit Fiend
57. Erinyes
58. Chain Devil
59. Bearded Devil
60. Barbed Devil
61. Spined Devil
62. Ice Devil
63. Djinni
64. Nalfeshnee
65. Glabrezu
66. Chasme
67. Grell
68. Barlgura
69. Horned Devil
70. Balor
71. Shadow Dragon
72. Vrock
73. Dretch
74. Gnolls (all three)
75. Goristro
76. Hezrou
77. Manes
78. Frost Giant
79. Duergar
80. Quasit
81. Dryad
82. Flumph
83. Goblin
84. Githyanki
85. Planetar
86. Imp
87. Clay Golem
88. Flameskull
89. Displacer Beast
90. Carrion Crawler
91. Githzerai
92. Grick
93. Rug of Smothering
94. Bugbear Chief
95. Bugbear
96. Flesh Golem
97. Vine Blight
98. Twig Blight
99. Needle Blight
100. Bullywug
101. Ettercap
102. Gas Spore
103. Cockatrice
104. Lemure
105. Solar
106. Deva
107. Gorgon
108. Griffon
109. Cyclops
110. Centaur
111. Ghost
112. Fire Elemental
113. Water Elemental
114. Air Elemental
115. Stone Giant
116. Deep Gnome
117. Dinosaurs (All six of them)
118. Iron Golem
119. Stone Golem
120. Earth Elemental
121. Galeb Duhr
122. Flying Sword
123. Crawling Claw
124. Violet Fungus
125. Shrieker
126. Gargoyle