Baba Yaga

**Baba Yaga** is a Slavic Goddess of Death and Wisdom.

## **Background**

Perhaps one of the most well-known pieces of Slavic folklore is the myths of the goddess Baba Yaga. She was once a well-respected and revered goddess in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. As Christianity spread, Baba Yaga lost most of her worshipers and was demonized to an ugly old bogeyman that lived out in the woods and ate little children. It is possible that Baba Yaga was originally a triple-goddess.

In Slavic myths, Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs. Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out and may play a maternal role and has associations with forest wildlife. Baba Yaga commonly appears as either a donor, malevolent, or may be altogether ambiguous.

## **Personality**

Baba Yaga has a very contradicting personality. She is not good, but is not entirely evil either. She can't be portrayed as a good mixer or a very easy-going person, or a malevolent goddess. She has been known on occasion to offer guidance to lost souls, help heroes with their quests, although this is seen as rare.

## **Appearance**

Being a crone goddess, Baba Yaga's true form is that of a very old woman, this usually shifts between the form of a sweet grandmother to a more grotesque form with a bone-thin body and a hateful stare.

## **Known Powers and Abilities**

Baba Yaga is an extremely powerful and unusual goddess with some unique attributes.

* **Super Strength** - Baba Yaga displays inhuman strength, overpowering humans effortlessly and flinging them across the room when enraged.
* **Super Stamina** - Despite having a reputation for cooking and consuming people, mostly children, she is still a goddess and doesn't require sustenance to survive.
* **Super Speed** - Baba Yaga can travel great distances rapidly.
* **Super Agility** - She possesses supernatural agility, she is known for her terrifying agility, often described as being spider-like, she is capable of crawling around on walls and can contort her body far beyond what a human is capable of.
* **Super Senses** - She has demonstrated on more than one occasion the ability to see incredible distances, going so far as to even see outside of her Russia and into other parts of earth.
* **Immortality** - Baba Yaga is millennia old and cannot die from age or disease.
* **Nigh Invulnerability** - Baba Yaga is invulnerable to all forms of harm she is completely unharmed to injury aside from being angered.
* **Nigh Indestructibility** - As a goddess, Baba Yaga is immune to all forms of destruction, however her body is still susceptible to outside forces as she has had her fingers removed before.
* **Regeneration** - Baba Yaga can regrow lost body parts, however this process takes time.
* **Shapeshifting** - She is able to switch between forms, usually between the form of a sweet grandmother to a demonic grotesque crone form.
* **Biokinesis** - Baba Yaga is able to manipulate the bodily functions of other beings, like humans, and can either inflict injuries or heal them. She has displayed the ability to cause a person's jaw to fall off just by snapping her fingers.
* **Conjuration** - In stories, Baba Yaga created her sentient chicken-legged cabin and her flying mortar using her power, implying she can create things out of thin air at will.
* **Mental Manipulation** - Baba Yaga is able to prey on people's fears by causing them to experience hallucinations. According to the lore, this is how she targets children. She also appears to possess hypnosis or at the very least altering a person's perception of her to hide her true intentions.
* **Electromagnetic Interference** - Due to her tremendous power levels, Baba Yaga's presence causes the lights to flicker and sometimes explode.
* **Soul Manipulation** - She was often seen counting the fingers of the corpses of her victims before sucking in their souls and breathing them into empty skulls to create ghostly lanterns. These skull lanterns are shown to be placed along the side of her cabin and completely fill the interior of her chicken-legged house.
* **Necromancy** - Baba Yaga is able to raise the souls of the dead to do her bidding against their will.
* **Telekinesis** - She is able to manipulate the world around her with the power of her mind and implied to be a highly advanced telekinetic. She is known for telekinetically slamming the door of her cabin to trap people inside.
* **Reality Warping** - When enranged, Baba Yaga can warp reality and curse entire regions, such as cursing every newborn baby to be blind in one eye.
* **Power Granting** - She has demonstrated the ability to amplify the powers of other beings. She can also influence a person's soul and help grant them immortality, as seen with Koshchei the Deathless.
* **Apporting** - At will, Baba Yaga can teleport other beings to different locations of her choosing.
* **Telepathy** - She has the ability to communicate with people telepathically should she deem it necessary.
* **Invisibility** - Baba Yaga can turn invisible unless she wants to be seen.

## **Weaknesses**

* **Other Deities** - Other gods are able to overpower her if they are stronger than her.
* **Divine Weaponry** - Are capable of causing serious harm to Baba Yaga.