Hags

A **Hag** is a daughter of Auril, a truly hideous creature both externally and internally. All Hags are female, and while most are still considered fae in both power and nature, some have descended even further into fiendishness. Hag magic, being of fae origin, is countered and generally controlled by Druidic magic. While most Hags on Djorig were either sealed away, banished to the faewild, or destroyed completely; some independent Hags still dwell within the world, and their corrupting influences can be felt on the fringes of society.

## Subspecies

### Annis

Annis hags, also known as black hags or iron hags, are most physically brutish of Hags, though they are also the weakest in magical might. Annis hags are the least manipulative of the hags, though that is to relate a lake to an ocean in quantity of water. Relatively impatient compared to their sisters, Annis hags are the most likely to directly confront any that would seek to stop their plans. Annis hags prefer corrupting children the most, leading them away from their parents, before eating them and swapping them for changeling. Annis hags are particularly favor the flesh of children, small animals and innocents. After their feast, they tend to drape the flesh of their victims about their bodies, and enjoy keeping tokens of their hunt as trophies hanging from their necks. They also enjoy sowing anguish in local communities, often returning pieces of their victims to their love ones; the most insidious of them doing so in ways that implicit those loved ones of the murder. Annis hags could generally be found in mountainous or hill-filled locations, though they can also be found in more baron forests, dwelling in caves or hovels on the edge of societies.

Classic example of an Annis Hag would be the Witch in Hansel and Gretel.

### Bheur

Extremely harsh and least common of Hags, the favored daughters of Auril most closely represent their mother's power over decay and frost. Bheur Hags are also known as blue hags, or winter hags, for their frostbitten flesh in their natural form. Bheur hags tend to stray in colder regions of the world, lacking the fortitude to dwell in sunnier locations. However their rarity does not mean they lack influence. Despite their fewer numbers, Bheur hags tend to have a stronger grip over nearby communities, influencing them for generations until they come to both depend and despise the Bheur Hag. They can be as callous as a winter blizzard, but as generous as a new spring growth, though their generosity always benefits themselves in the long run. A common misconception is that there is only one Bheur Hag, moving from place to place through the generations, but that is false. The majority of the species left the Prime-Material Plane, instead tending to their mother as her favored handmaids. Bheur hags enjoy corrupting paragons of good into their own servants. The insidious whispers of a winter hag can drive even the most resolute of paladins to question their oaths, their sickening words piercing like a cold wind. It is not uncommon to find oathbreakers and corrupted fae in the presence of a Bheur hag. They can most commonly be found in winterstruck forests, cold mountains, or on the edge of tundras.

Classic examples of Bheur Hags would be Caileach, or Jadis, The White Witch in Narnia.

### Blood

The most dangerous hags to be found on the face of Djorig, and the youngest subspecies of Hags. Unlike their sisters, who all were born as a reflection of nature, blood hags are a reflection of humanity. Blood Hags -- known as red hags or, by the misnomer, vampire hags -- were birthed by Auril after arriving in the Prime-Material Plane after witnessing Humans capacity for their own destructive instincts. So named for their craving of bathing in blood of humans, unlike their elder sisters, Blood Hags keep a more youthful appearance and morph their features not through illusion but true transmutation. By bathing in the blood of an individual, Blood Hags can either take their guise, or rejuvenate their own youth. Blood hags were notorious in Djorig's history, the sole kind that could easily enter into a society and corrupt it internally, not simply from the outskirts. Luckily Blood Hags were rare, only barely coming into notoriety just before the Hag War started and solely within Human settlements. The most famous of Blood Hags, Sobreia, managed to infiltrate the human kingdom of Tal'Moran and it is said she was instrumental in its downfall. She is likewise notorious for escaping capture, and could still be in power today.

A classic example of a Blood Hag would be the Countess, Elizabeth Báthory.

### Green

Also known as swamp hags or river hags, Green hags are physically the weakest of all hags, as well as individually some of the least threatening. Despite their physically weak stature, they have an enormous potential for magical arts. Green hags are the most likely of all daughters of Auril to form covens, magnifying their collective power. If isolated, even the weakest of adventurers prove a threat, but when together, a coven of green hags can become an enormous threat to an entire region. Green hags enjoy corrupting innocence and beauty more than anything else. The modus operandi for swamp hag covens were to take control of smaller communities, demanding sacrifices in the form of adolescents and babies in return for favors and blessings; favors and blessings which would undoubtedly only force the communities to depend on the coven for their continued survival. Individual green hags would take the guise of beautiful woman, often the form of nymphs, to lure unsuspecting youth into their clutches, before devouring them or forcing them into servitude. Any that find themselves indebted or in service of a green hag were often forced into horrific scarification, marring their faces and bodies for their mistress' sick pleasures. Green hags can most commonly be found in bogs, swamps, and likewise sullen locations.

A classic example of a Green Hag would be Baba Yaga. Contemporary example being the Crones from the Witcher.

### Night

Night hags are some of the most dangerous and yet the most removed from mortalkind of the Daughters of Auril. Night Hags, also know as Fiend Hags and Soul Hags, are the vultures of the Astral Sea. They sit upon the river of souls and pluck any stragglers to either devour themselves or trade with other fiends for their own intentions. Luckily, being outsiders, losing their fae nature, they are unable to enter the Prime-Material Plane without aid and mostly go unnoticed by living mortals.

### Sea

The definitive weakest among all hags, sea hags are the most cowardly among the Daughters of Auril, and yet some of the most ambitious. Sea Hags see anything beyond themselves as a threat, generally unwilling to trust anyone else. They wish nothing more than to elevate themselves into another type of hag, most commonly evolving directly into Green Hags, though exactly how they do that is unknown. Sea hags are a nuance for settlements close to waters edge and for unprotected ships. Often Sea hags are mistaken for sirens, calling out sailors and fishermen to their doom under the image of mermaids and water nymphs. On Djorig, they are feared mostly for their connection to the Veiled Masters, mysterious and tyrannical sea dwelling horrors that were most recently pushed back by King Divod Whitdreamer and Queen Ralia Xotross and their allies.The sea hags are still known to infest the waters of Dyowan's oceans, though they tend to hide away, fearing attack from adventurers.

A classic example of a Sea hag would be Ursula from the Little Mermaid.

## Graeae

The whispered ones, feared even by the mightiest of either civilization's champions or nature's defenders. The Graeae were the favored daughters of Auril, the eldest and most powerful of all hags. Graeae could be any kind of hag, with even a single blood graeae known to have existed. Luckily for the people of Djorig, the Graeae were sealed away within the Faewild under the watchful gaze of the Seelie Court.

## History

When Auril left the Unseelie court with her daughters, they discovered the hearts of man were far easier to sway than even that of fae. They profited off the seeds they sowed into the human cultures for generations, slowly expanding their influence even to the reaches of rulers. This was the status quo until the rise of Xotross, with whom Andronos called for the eradication of the hags' corrupting influence. Together with the Druidic Forenä, the clerics of Andronos proceeded to hunt down and destroy every hag they could located. This proved folly however, as Hags, being of fae origin, simply reformed after a time and collected together under the banner of their elder-kin, the Graeae. A large, and incredibly dangerous, army of Hags unified within the Hagswoods on the outskirts of the Voydviðr Forest. In 313 X.R., a massive battle took place between the two sides, now known as the Graeaes' Defeat, in which the Druidic Forenä banished the majority of the forces of the Hag army to the Faewild, locked into stasis inside a demiplane under the control of the Skarlet Quene Versillia.

Since then, the Druidic circles of Dyowan have taken it upon themselves to hunt down any known hags and either seal them away. Unfortunately, following the banishment of the majority of her Daughters, Auril has been incredibly angry at those of the Green Faith and resurrects any of her daughters that are slain. She has sworn to corrupt the druidic circles that were a part of the Forenä, either morphing them into more of her daughters or devouring them personally.