What Happens When A D&D Dragon Becomes A Hag?

hello and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that took one look at Dungeons and Dragons and said what if there were more dragons today is a very special episode because for the first time since the Asar Raa I've got an entirely original Monster for you to add to your game the hag Dragon started as a conversation that I was having with mallerie on our way to Walmart since it was a normal Tuesday we were talking about dragons and how weird it was that there isn't a dragon connected with the darker side of Fay magic in D and d one thing led to another and before I knew it I was at my desk writing down stats for the hag Dragon so as always we're going to go over this Monster's lore andology as well as some plot Hooks and story ideas for how you might use this monster at your game table we of course won't be converting it from another edition of D and D because it's an original Monster but we will be creating some 5V stats that you can use for free which are linked in the description down below now I also want to give a special shout out to this week's sponsor me I'm sponsor sponsoring this video sort of as many of you may know I'm working on a 5e encounter book along with fellow YouTubers Wally DM in Mr teras we kickstarted the quintessential guide to monster encounters at the end of November last year and it was a success so we've been working away at this thing for about 10 months now and we're very nearly finished and as you may have guessed by this point much like the as faraba the hag dragon is one of the monsters which is going to be in this book so all the stat block and lore stuff will be available for free as it always is with each one of my monster videos if you want to check out our hag Dragon encounter or any of the other original Monsters complete with full encounters you can drag and drop into your DND campaign consider checking out our book and if you are one of the folks who originally backed the kickstarter the wait is almost over and if you didn't back the kickstarter and you haven't already pre-ordered the book I will pin a comment and leave a link in the description so you can go and check out the book for yourself see if it's something you might be interested in we've put a ton of work into this thing over the the past year and I'm so excited to unveil it to the world so all I ask is if you think this monster seems cool check it out but with all that said settle in for a while and allow me to tell you A Tale of Fay wild magic hag covens and [Music] [Applause] [Music] Dragons now obviously there's no publication history to go over here because the first printing of the hag dragon is in a book that has not been released yet so skimming past that allow me to tell you what this creature is and what makes it so special hag dragons like most dragons begin life as an egg the egg housing our eventual hag dragon can be from any species of true Dragon red black green yellow pink it doesn't matter the egg can be metallic chromatic from a gem dragon or another lesser known species the point is as long as a true Dragon the specific origin of the egg doesn't really matter but what does matter is that this particular dragon egg has found its way into the clutches of a coven of hags quick sidebar here hags are a topic I could go on about at length but in order to keep things short concise and relevant to this specific monster a hag coven is essentially just a group of three hags that come together to cooperate individually hags are very powerful and strange but in covens of three they achieve a whole new level of Arcane power and become much more dangerous and when a coven gets their hands on a dragon egg naturally they're able to use their magic in sinister fashion by subjecting the egg to a profane ritual that consumes many rare regions and takes a week to perform the coven transforms the dragon egg into something grotesque once the ritual is complete the egg hatches though what comes out would certainly be a shock to the Dragon's actual parents look at my son oh in the artwork being used in our book The hag dragon is based on a black dragon egg as you can see it still has the horns of the original draconic creature but its regular eyes have become small and vestigial replacing them as a massive orange eye in the center of the creature's forehead in addition its scales are modeled brown and yellow lending to a sickly sort of hue the dragon also has a mop of wiry spines on its head that in some ways might resemble a hag nest of hair the spines massive eye and scale coloration are the signature traits of the hag Dragon the rest of its body is going to change from specimen to specimen for example a hag dragon born from a blue dragon egg is of course going to have that singular massive horn one born of a gold dragon egg however is likely going to have long flowing fin-like wings but whatever the origin of the dragon egg is once the hag dragon is born it finds itself in an unusual circumstance The Hags who created it of course did so to have an extremely powerful tool at their disposal so you better believe they're going to try to keep this Dragon Under Control by any means necessary but dragons of all kinds are known for their advanced intelligence at extremely young stages of life and the hag dragon is no different they have 10 Intelligence coming straight out the egg which is the same as your average human and it should come as no surprise that that makes them a bit unruly no dragon is ever going to be satisfied in a role of subjugation it's completely against their nature it's only a matter of time before they grow powerful enough to either leave or more likely Kill The Hags that shaped them in the first place in order to keep the dragon in check though as part of the ritual the dragon is prevented from aging by the passage of time theoretically a hag Dragon could be 10,000 years old and still only possess the body and powers of a wormling but The Hags will of course want the Dragon too mature eventually just not too much too soon and in a way that they have control over the creature so here's how this works the hag dragon's breath weapon is a cone of time inhalation stick with me on this for a second rather than exhaling fire or lightning the dragon inhales and as it breathes deep it steals the life force of other creatures this not only causes its enemies to age rapidly but it also causes the dragon to add their sto in years to its own making the Dragon Age as well this means that the hags can periodically feed the life force of others to their new draconic pet in order to control the creature's growth never allowing it to get more powerful than the hags can manage thus keeping it Bound in servitude perpetually however as I mentioned most dragons are very smart often imperious and most importantly ambitious and for this reason the act of crafting a hag dragon is considered Taboo in many hag circles FY Shadow Magic brings nothing but chains and misery Because unless you've got a Sure Fire way to control that creature it's a story that often doesn't end well for The Hags but cautionary tales about crafting Unholy Abominations aside let's take a moment to talk about the actual abilities this Dragon possesses and how it might use them to free itself of its hag captors as you might imagine the hag dragon is a blending of all the worst traits a hag has to offer and the unbridled power of a dragon the first thing you might notice on the stab block is this creature's type is sort of wonky while it definitely is a dragon it's also definitely a fay creature it was really important to me while creating this monster that things which only affect dragons and only affect Fay would both affect this creature because it's kind of both so I gave it the dragon type and the Fay tag this might not come up a bunch but the odd times when it does I think it'll make for some really interesting roleplay moments whether it's the Ranger with favored enemy tracking some kind of bizarre Dragon they've never seen or a paladin using protection from evil and good to Shield against the dragon's Fame magic I think it being a sort of dual type creature is both very flavorful and mechanically kind of interesting but as far as the actual Act and traits on this creature's sheet it can do all the stuff that dragons normally get to do of course it claws it bites it causes people to be afraid oh but this creature also has a lot more to offer than your typical draconic monster it borrows the green hags mimicry trait allowing it to recreate both animal sounds and humanoid voices and of course it can speak silven and common immediately from birth the Giant Orange eye in its head is also not just for show I mean sure it might look creepy and unnerving which is a big plus but it also grants the dragon true sight of to 10 ft as a wormling which of course gets progressively further with age capping out at 120 ft when it becomes ancient their massive eye is also linked to another action called intellect extraction this is somewhat inspired by the noic and allows the dragon to force its Target to make an INT saving throw on a failed save the dragon learns one one fact or secret about the Target and if they fail to save by five or more not only does the dragon learn this information but the target forgets it until someone else reminds them of that stuff that they just forgot so if say for example the dragon learns that creature's name they might just forget what their name is until one of their companions calls them by their name and reminds them man my name is Jeff in a more dire circumstance they might end up forgetting something that only they know in that situation you're kind of at the dragon's Mercy but whatever the situation is this is a great opportunity for some DM and player collaboration to determine what exactly the dragon learns ultimately it is up to the DM but I think giving the player a chance to offer some input can be a cool way for them to reveal information about their character to the rest of the table without it being super hamfisted plus at the dragon's older stages of life it can use this as a legendary action meaning it won't have to waste an entire turn on what might just be a flavorful action and speaking of actions the one I'm sure everyone's been waiting to hear about is how the dragon's breath weapon actually works as I alluded to earlier this Dragon does not have a typical breath weapon where it exhales a line or cone of energy but rather it inhales a cone of death anyone caught in the breath attack literally has their life force drained away and consumed by the dragon this of course causes a bunch of necrotic damage to the targets that scales with the Dragon's Age but it also ages them by 1 D4 time 10 years if they fail their save by five or more which of course scales up to 2 D4 * 10 years at its oldest stage of Life getting aged between 10 and 80 years is a straight up bad time so don't fail your safe fortunately in fifth edition we don't have rules for how age affects your stats like we have in the past but you can still die of old age meaning that this Dragon much like the ghost in the monster manual is terrifying for anyone to encounter especially for the more short-lived races though like humans or God forbid Orcs losing 80 years as an elf sucks losing 80 years as a human really sucks but losing 80 years as an Orc is a guaranteed one-way trip to the halls of Grooms which might not suck depending on what kind of orc you are I guess but hopefully that gives you a good idea of how this Dragon does battle and what its actual actions are they've got the brutality of a draconic creature with the weird Ness of a hag all rolled into one horrible package oh and I should mention at their highest two age categories being adult and ancient they have a legendary action that allows them to summon the ghosts of those they've killed so watch out for that but moving on it wouldn't be a proper dragon video if we didn't take some time to talk about where this sucker lives so let's do [Music] that hag dragons make their layer pretty much anywhere you'd find hags this is of course because the hag dragon is either living with the coven that created it or it has since killed them and taken over their base of operations the only thing that's going to really affect where its layer is is what kind of hag coven is responsible for its creation a coven of green hags likely lives in a swamp or forested area whereas a covenant of night hags could be anywhere from the shadowfell to the nine Hells they could even live under the sea in a layer formerly occupied by Sea Hags the layer actions listed on the sheet presume the dragon is in a swampy or forested area but you can change it up flavor-wise very easily for example the first layer action that sends thorny Vines jutting out to Grapple The Intruders could easily be strands of kelp or a demonic tendril but what's really important here if you're choosing to use all of the optional Dragon rules is the regional effects imposed by an ancient and Powerful hag Dragon Regional effects are extremely impactful passive abilities that the mere presence of an ancient dragon can inflict upon the area and like a rancid infection the hag dragon is no different creatures within 12 Mi of the Dragon Age at twice their normal rate adding the exhausted lifespan to that of the Dragon so any towns or Villages nearby are going to start to notice their people growing up really fast and then dying when they should be middle-aged 2 months ago you were in great health but now you have the body of a 75-year-old man what you're aging at an alarming rate how did this happen this in and of itself can be enough to either make make people leave or call in adventurers to help investigate a strange phenomena we love a baked in plot hook wild animals within 3 miles of the dragon's layer May begin to mutate as well growing a singular orange eye in the middle of their skull this is not only a grotesque warning to any Intruders but the dragon can also use an action to see through the eye of any of these creatures allowing them to act as a sort of security camera system now within 6 miles the area is also lightly obscured by an orange Haze this might prove to be a boon or a curse to any Travelers but remember the dragon has true sight so this fog won't be impeding its ability to see anything also it's creepy or at least a little spooky something that's also worth keeping in mind is that the layer is going to be chalk full of hag stuff what that means is ultimately up to the DM but there might be weird Cursed Magic items all over the place or maybe even some traps and ritual sites the players could Discover it should feel like a place that wasn't built for the dragon but if the dragon is now running the show it should also feel like it's been adapted to the Dragon's purposes and there are a lot of ways a dragon might use a hag coven's layer but that I think is legally a story beat so let's move on and talk about a [Music] few the first thing that comes to mind for me is that the creation of a hag dragon can be a quest in and of itself hags are notorious for making shady and conventional deals so maybe there is a hag that has something the players want or need and they're willing to trade if the players can bring the hag a dragon egg a task much easier said than done the quest Giver might not even appear as an obvious hag they could be using magic to mask their true identity and claim that the egg is just for a collection or some kind of scholarly project The Hags could even be using a servant to make this transaction on their behalf so that the one actually doing the deal isn't hag either just some dude who owes a favor to The Hags for something they traded to him you know classic hag scheming Shenanigans but whether the egg is brought to the hags by the players or they just already have one attained through some other means like I said hag dragons are very difficult to control perhaps The Hags actually reach out to the players for help explaining that they've created this horrible monster and then failed to control it so if they don't work together to stop it it's going to be bad news for everyone or perhaps the Dragon has already killed the coven of hags that created it and is now using magic to disguise itself as a typical green hag so if the players decide to get aggressive and cut down the hag they might be in for a nasty surprise speaking of cins another idea that crossed my mind while creating this creature is what would a coven of hag dragons look like I mean hag dragons are certain to be a rarity so it's not like this is a sort of thing that would happen very often but assume for a moment that you have three independent hag dragons that have all become connected to one another how horrifying would that be you don't have to imagine it because on the hag Dragon statute There are rules for what kind of spells the hag Dragon coven might gain access to if they manag to work together and fair warning they're obscenely powerful but mechanics aside just think of what kind of Earth shattering rituals a coven of hag dragons might be able to cast this could be a potential endgame boss threat if we're talking about a coven of ancient hag dragons that's some level 20 to be sure but that's kind of the beauty of dragons in general is that because of their age category system they can range in threat from cr3 to cr22 in the hag dragon's case and maybe they even have to stop the creation of a hag Dragon coven because there's already one hag dragon and it's trying to obain dragon eggs from other dragons so it can do the ritual itself I mean that would be wild and exactly the kind of thing a hag would do but real things back in here for a moment on the smaller scale maybe the players are actually tricked into helping a hag Dragon destroy The Hags that created it the dragon might come to them and try to convince the players that it is being used and abused and controlled and manipulated by The Hags which might be true but it tells them that if they kill The Hags and set the dragon free it will just go live peacefully in the mountains or whatever so that was a lie once free the dragon May indeed disappear into the sunset only to return much larger and much more powerful after free feeding on the lives of countless small villages for something that just deals with the dragon directly perhaps it has used its information theft ability to steal a piece of critical information from an NPC or even a party member so the party has to find the dragon and figure out how to learn the information that was lost because if they just kill it that's not going to help them they'll need to either barter with it trick it into sharing the information with them or just going without I guess attacking it until Death is certain and then agreeing to let it live if the information is freely given to the party technically counts as bartering but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it there's a lot of ways I can go wrong you could also encounter a village in the aftermath of this Dragon being set loose where everyone has been either killed or transformed into the elderly by the dragon's time devouring magic but I'll save the gritty details of that scenario for its entry in the quintessential guide to monster encounters as I said at the beginning of this video this monster along with the encounter that's going to be built along with it will of course be included in the monster book I'm working on which can be pre-ordered using the link below but as a special sneak preview for everyone watching as always in the description you can find all the stats and rules for this monster linked in the form of a Google Document and for you patrons watching you can find the dungeon dad style PDF over on the dungeon dad patreon page speaking of which thanks to our layout designer Taran pounds the patreon PDFs are undergoing somewhat of a facelift right now so be sure to let me know what you think of the new look I also want to just generally give a massive shout out to all the patrons who back me over on patreon and make this show possible thank you so much and a special thank you goes out to our patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is chromed thank you so much for witnessing me make my content I couldn't do it without you and thank you for watching as always if there is a monster from a previous edition of Dungeons and Dragons or any other role playing game that you would like to see converted into fifth edition and discussed in depth on this channel Channel let me know in the comments below or let me know on the dungeon dad Discord creature suggestions Channel God that's such a mouthful stumble over that line like every time anyways jump on Discord let me know there let me know in the comments I'll put it on the list and you might just see it show up in an episode of Monster of the week other than that don't think I've really got any news for you this week so thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one until [Music] then [Music] The Hags aren't done with their Twisted magic just yet The Boys Are Back in Town and they're ready to kick off hag boy Autumn with a bang [Music] next episode hag spawn tune in next time for lots more spooky scary fan [Music] service

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Id: ZvAh33-Filc

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023