What Happens When a Hag is Born Male in D&D?

hello and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that thinks Halloween should be a statutory holiday today we're talking about A peculiar creature from D and D history that I think will be useful not just to the DMS watching but also any players who might be looking to make their next character a bit more interesting the hag spawn as always we're going to go over this Monster's publication history as well as its lore and bizarre ecology then we're going to convert it from 3.5 to fifth edition D and so you can use it at your five e table and as an added bonus I've even converted the hag spawn as a potential playable character Race So if you've ever wanted to be the bastard son of a nigh Haag now is your chance this week's creature is truly a weird one and I'm very excited to tell you why I like them as much as I do so fire up the cauldron and get your Regents ready because it's time for monster of the [Music] week the hag spawn is a fascinating creature they got their start in the unapproachable East setting book which detailed all the creatures monsters and locals of the unapproachable East this region in the Forgotten Realms is notoriously dangerous and gets its name because of how unapproachable it is all right yeah of course and if you find yourself thinking I'm sure it's not that unapproachable it's where they is you know zaz's house in fact he's on the cover of the book so maybe think about that before you put your hiking boots on but back to the hag spawn at first glance they resemble powerfully built brutish humans they have overly long arms massive hands and despite their hunched posture they still stand well over 6 and 1/2 to 7 ft tall but in order to fully understand the hag spawn and exactly what they are we need to talk about their parents hags are among the most cruel and cunning creatures you can come across and the ways they propagate themselves are a reflection of that in fifth edition lore the only way that hags beget more hags is via a truly disturbing and disgusting ritual that involves the hag consuming an infant then a little while later they give birth to a new infant that will ultimately grow up to be a hag in past additions there is also precedent for hags shape-shifting into humanoid form and getting down with the locals of a nearby town in order to birth hags the oldfashioned way but in either case hags are one of the few monsters that are always one gender and in their case hags are always female and they give birth 99% of the time to female Offspring which of course themselves are hags in fact most hag covens are the result of a hag having a pair of daughters that are raised by the hag and taught her ways this not only makes all the hags more powerful but also allows the hag to assert a level of control over the other members of her coven given that they are the original hag's children but once in a while things don't go as they typically do and a male child is born to the hag you don't often hear about male hags in D and D and that's because they don't exist males born to a hag certainly inherit their natural strength and stature but for whatever reason their blood doesn't carry the same potency of Arcane energy that allows the hag to wield her magic and that is what a hag spawn is the child of a hag who doesn't carry their talent for magic and is therefore often seen by the cruel hag parent as essentially useless a big brute and nothing more hags aren't exactly known for their caring and compassionate disposition personally I think hags are among some of the most evil and up monsters in the DND creature catalog and the way they treat their offspring in either case is Testament to that in the case of the male hag spawn though most are abandoned at Birth left in the forest for the Wolves to contend with and tragically that's in many cases how their story ends however once in a while the baby is found by passing Travelers or in some cases perhaps a local group of Bandits or maybe a nest of goblins that for whatever reason take pity on the child and I do think it's worth mentioning that hags are sentient living thinking beings so this can play out in any number of ways maybe this specific hag parent chooses to keep the hag spawn around as a servant before the hag spawn gets fed up and runs away or maybe the hag is killed by a group of adventurers who find the child and take them somewhere safe every adult hag spawn living in the world is going to have a unique backstory and likely a tragic one but those that get the chance often Live Life by relying on their grit and determination to thrive in the face of adversity obviously depends on the setting and location in question but heg spawn are often not greeted with kindness when they travel among humanoid settlements most people just don't know much about hag spawn because they are so rare So when they see a 7ft tall dude lumbering towards town that looks sort of like a hag their first instinct is often to draw steel I feel like it's understandable that some hag spawn want nothing to do with the towns and cities of the world and instead find their place in the Wilds either as lone wolves or in the company of others who exist at The Fringe of society such as they do like Bandits however there are also those that seek to be understood by society and want to show the world that they're just like everybody else except tall and lanky and with hag-like features in societies that are socially Advanced enough to not judge them on appearance alone they often integrate pretty seamlessly but something that further confuses the general population of most fantasy Realms is that in addition to being so uncommon hag spawn can also vary in appearance quite a bit their General large frame and hag-like features are pretty much Universal but depending on the heritage of both parents they can bear resemblance to all manner of different species if the humanoid parent was a dwarf they might have a long full beard or if their father was an elf they could have pointed ears but that said though it's definitely the maternal side that dictates the majority of their features hag spawn born to Green hags for example are going to have skin that is some shade of green and silvery gray hair those born to night hags will likely have dark purple skin and twisting horns that emerge from their skull hag spawn born from Sea Hags are liable to have scales and green kelp likee hair as their mothers do and those born to beer or Anis hags will likely reflect their most common features in kind so a hag spawn born to say I nigh hag and a Goliath is likely going to look vastly different to one born from a Sea Hag and a human because even if they both give birth via the baby munching method some of the original parents DNA is still going to be in there God this is such an unfortunate topic why why did I make this video again something else that further muddies the water surrounding hags in their prog is the existence of hex Bloods hex Bloods introduced in Van Ron's guide to Raven Loft are and I quote individuals infused with eldrich magic Fay energy or mysterious witchcraft often this mysterious witchcraft means that the hex blood in question was a humanoid creature who had made a deal with a hag in exchange for some kind of favor or power they are also sometimes the result of a hag meddling with a child as they grow up but but they can also arise due to someone interfering with dark magical forces in any manner of different ways the primary difference here aside from their General appearance is that the hex blood is a template applied to other creatures you are typically not born as a hex blood although that can happen and even if you are you're still effectively whatever race you were naturally with the hex blood template added on top hag spawn on the other hand are members of the dimorphic hag species even if they are typically discounted by their own people now with an understanding about how this creature came to be and what the hag spawn is let's move on and talk about what kind of abilities they actually possess as sentient humanoid creatures any one hag spawn is bound to be different from another the hag spawns entry in our monster manual is going to be less of a specific creature like say the purple worm in more of a class of humanoid creatures like the Dr Orcs or hobgoblins they are generally pretty Hardy and have a bonus to strength as well so the biggest commonality across every hag spawn is that they have good strength and Constitution this also gives them the powerful build trait that grants Advantage On Athletics checks and strength saving throws they are technically humanoid creatures but due to their hag ancestry every hag spawn has the Monstrous humanoid rate that essentially makes them immune to effects that only target humanoid creatures there aren't a ton of spells in the game that only affect humanoid creatures but the ones that do such as charm person dominate person or hold person are all among the most powerful and commonly used spells in the game but other than those base traits and the fact that each one is assigned male at Birth every hag spawn is truly different so on the stat conversion sheet for today I've given you three basic steps blocks ranging from cr1 to 4 each one is sort of meant to represent a vastly different archetype that a hag spawn might take the first is The Hags spawn Bruiser which is sort of meant to be just your catchall basic hag spawn they're cr1 they have a great Axe and they can take the Reckless attack action like a barbarian player could the second one is the hag spawn Redeemer this is meant to be your hag spawn that has taken up the sword in order to act as a defender of the weak these guys are the ones who use their Fay ancestry to actively fight against evil and as such they have some stuff borrowed from the Paladin and by stuff I mean Divine Smite they get two long sword attacks and a shield bash each turn and they have three smites per day so this is going to be a markedly much more dangerous and tactical version of the hag spawn stat block lastly we have the hag spawn preserver which is basically a hag spawn that said you know what you Mom I think I will learn to cast some spells these guys clock in at cr3 and are effectively the source version of the hag spawn they are only armed with a Quarter Staff but they can cast shalele on it to make it a magical Bonk stick and they also come equipped with a few spells that felt hag-like to me such as Bane hex and entangle they're not going to be smacking people around as much as the other two hag spawn are but when they do it's going to hurt real bad with their once per day casting of En llarge reduce I feel like the optimal move is often going to be to just cast chal make your Quarter Staff magical cast enlarge to get huge and then start whacking but if none of these stat blocks fulfill your idea for a hag spawn encounter or you simply want to make a hag spawn NPC of your own or you're a player who wants to make a hags spawn character we've got rules for that [Music] too playing as a hags spawn character definitely has lots of built-in opportunities to be compelling from a story standpoint were you born and then subsequently aband by your hag mother or perhaps you grew up under her care only running away when you realized how awful and cruel she actually is is your hag mother still out there somewhere is she looking for you to enact revenge for you running away or is she actually completely indifferent to your existence these are all questions worth considering But ultimately will be answered at the game table so let's talk mechanics hag spawn characters all get a few bonuses and traits you get a plus two to Constitution you get dark vision and you gain Proficiency in the survival skill all pretty normal stuff but then of course you've got your big feature being monsterous blood this works the same way as it does for our NPC hag spawn stat blocks meaning that you are immune to the effects of spells and abilities that exclusively Target humanoids this isn't going to come up all the time but having a blanket immunity to a few spells and effects is really nice and you might be able to catch the odd enemy off guard now and again you also get access to silven the language of the Fay which I feel is self-explanatory where this starts to get real spicy is when you choose a subrace there are five hag varieties that have made their way into fifth edition D and D so I included a hag spawn subrace for each type of hag depending on who your mother is you might get some Nifty new abilities starting from the top we have the Anis hag these hags have a name that will make your entire table laugh every time you say it and are by far the most physically imposing of the hag species often reaching 8 ft in height they're also just physical powerhouses literally crushing anybody they can get their hands on so as an Anis hag spawn you get a boost to strength you get a claw attack to replace your unarmed strike and you get two Nifty abilities the first one is called iron token an iron token is a tooth or fingernail that you have removed and used some magic to Fashion into a coin anyone holding the coin can communicate telepathically with you as long as they're within 10 miles and on the same plane of existence so basically it's just a really nerfed watered down version of the sending Stones which I felt was a pretty cool racial ability to give to a player cuz I don't think it's ridiculously overpowered but I do think it's useful and kind of neat now the other arguably much more mechanically powerful ability is called crushing grip like your mother when you grapple another creature you can use your powerful limbs to try and squeeze the life out of them mechanically this means that if you are grappling a creature creature at the end of your turn that creature takes 1 D6 extra bludgeoning damage this subrace is obviously meant to be directed towards our more physically inclined hag spawn I could see a barbarian or maybe even a grapple based monk make great use of this option but moving on we have the beer hag spawn beer hags come from the Frozen wastes of the world and use their magic to inflict horrible ice storms on innocent Villages so they can watch them suffer you get a bonus to Charisma and resistance to cold damage you also learn the ray of frost canant trip and you can cast both armor of agathys or ice knife once per day as a racial ability pretty cool green hags are probably the most common type of hag and they tend to fit the classic Narrative of your old witch in the woods type character green hag spawn get a bonus to wisdom and inherit the green hags mimicry trait that allows them to mimic animal sounds and humanoid voices they also gain the vicious mockery can trip for free and can cast invisibility once per as an innate spell second to last we have nigh hags the only species of hag that is a fiend instead of a fay creature nigh haags are soul Brokers assaulting people in the night to try and twist their mind with awful dreams eventually corrupting them and killing them with exhaustion in order to reap their soul night hag spawn gain an ability inspired by their mothers that allows them to cast The Sleep spell once per day however when you put a creature to sleep using this trait they take psychic damage at the end of each turn this is potentially very powerful if used correctly especially at early levels that's always the trouble with the Sleep spell is as creatures start to gain more and more hit points the spell starts to fall off a little bit more but if you create a situation for yourself in which you can put other creatures to sleep it can be downright insane you also gain fire resistance and a bonus to intelligence lastly we have the ugly duckling of the hag crew the Sea Hag Sea Hags are notorious for being hideous to look at and downright terrifying to contend with so as a c hag spawn of course you're amphibious and able to breathe in and out of water but you also gain a plus two to dexterity and a Nega -2 to Charisma I don't think there are any racial options in fifth edition that include a negative stat as part of their package and that's something that hasn't really been in Vogue since third edition but given that sea haags are just notorious for being so ugly I really couldn't help myself I mean they literally have an ability that kills people who look at them come on basically once per day you get to make an intimidation check to try and horrify everyone around you that can see your face everyone within 30 ft has to make a wisdom saving throw which is opposed by your intimidation check however for this check and this check alone any negative modifiers you have towards Charisma are counted as positive modifiers for the sake of determining the DC that other creatures have to pass so that negative Charisma is going to help you out here in this one one instance and of course any creatures that fail are frightened of you so pick your favorite one or maybe assemble an entire crew of hag spawn you're the DM looking to create a new organization of some kind I like to imagine somewhere out there there's a paladin order of hag spawn all devoted to fighting evil but that I feel brings us to our next topic the hag spawn is one of those weird creatures that has such a specific lore and backstory to where they come from but once you get to that point there's unlimited directions that they can go since they can be a force for good evil or just the guy who runs the local Inn hag spawn NPC's at their most basic can be just a neat type of individual for the players to interact with playing to their type of bit having a hag spawn be the leader of a bandit group or the like is one way to make a villain immediately more understandable I mean sure most people won't turn to Bandit tree if they're given a better option but in the hag spawns case if they are rejected by Society they might literally not have another option this can be an interesting way for you to introduce nuanced themes about how the society your player characters come from might treat those who are Outsiders are seen as monstrous or perhaps instead of falling in with Bandits the young hags spawn was brought in by a circle of Druids now the hag spawn is maybe on the path to become one of these Druids or perhaps they've become some sort of Ranger that works with The Druids who rais them to protect the Wilderness I could also see the hag spawn becoming a sort of nomadic Sage or monk someone who just wants to be left alone to ponder the cosmos in their own way but one thing I would say you should always keep in mind when introducing a hags spawn NPC is the matter of their parentage presumably if a hag spawn is living in a village or in the wilderness somewhere there's a hag in the same region unless that hag spawn has traveled from afar and who knows maybe this specific hag spawn is actually cooperating with its mother there's no rule that says every hag has to disown their son they could even have a good relationship you serious maybe the hag spawn lives with a coven of hags where the spawn and two of The Hags are all children of the Elder in charge well they are typically not gifted with magic a powerful hag spawn Barbarian could act as a great Frontline combatant for a group of hags to stand behind in combat or to flip that scenario entirely on its head maybe the hag spawn has escaped and now Wants Revenge on its mother they could reach out to the players to Aid in their quest to destroy the hag who spawned them perhaps they even become a hag Hunter traveling the land vowing to cleanse the world of hag cruelty I also like the idea of a hag spawn being born and abandoned only to be taken in by the family of its father or mother who bir the original baby whatever it's original humanoid family maybe the guy in town who owns the general store has a son who's just really big and really tall sure there might be rumors about his Heritage but nothing provable and this could just be a little bit of flavorful World building or it could be something very relevant to your campaign I feel like talking about curse of strad and Raven Loft in general is cheating during spooky month because it's all just so easy and obvious but if you are running curse of strad there is a specific point in that module where the inclusion of a hag spawn could work very well power wimple the Big L encountered in the first Village is a prime candidate to actually be a hag spawn I won't go too in depth here to avoid spoilers for anyone who might be in a curse of strad campaign right now but I could see him being tied to a certain group of individuals very easily and I mean hey you always have the option of forgoing the Canon lore and just having hags spawn be another race of creatures that exist in your world I mean maybe there are male and female hags spawn and they're just kind of tangentially related to hags in much the same way that teelings are tangentially related to Devils you know they show all the characteristics of the creatures that they are related to way back in their ancestry but they are themselves a separate race of creatur Futures but no matter how you choose to use this monster be you player or dungeon master I hope you get an opportunity to bust it out at the table and tell some cool stories using the hag spawn as always there is a link to a Google document with all the stats lore and player race options in the description and if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the dungeon dad patreon page you can find the patreon style stat block with the new original artwork and fancy schmancy layout if you're not already a patron consider checking it out it's three bucks a month and helps me do whatever it is we're doing here for those of you already on the patreon thank you so much for the support truly means the world to me and a very special shout out to our patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is Walker sniper thank you so much for scoping out my content and supporting what I do here and thank you for watching as always if there is a monster from a previous edition of D and D another tabletop role playing game or just from somewhere in general that you would like to see converted into fifth edition and talked about in depth on this channel let me know in the comments down below or on the monster suggestions channel in the dungeon dad Discord and it will be added to the monster list and who knows you might just see it show up on an episode of Monster of the week in any case that's all I've got for you today we've still got at least one more Monster coming up to round out spooky month here so stick around to the end to see a preview of what's coming next week and I'll see you [Music] then [Music] a disgusting creature that blurs the lines between living being and Cosmic force is lurking in the space between but they do seem to have a great fashion sense one of the most dangerous monsters you've ever seen is on the way next episode UAM tune in next time for lots more spooky scary fan service

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Id: iCLIDgLt7N0

Length: 23min 47sec (1427 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023