The Realm of the Ghost Hag

Jhelnae found herself in a quiet wood. Cold, mist filled air swirled around her and the surrounding trees were shadowy sentinels in the enveloping darkness. It immediately reminded her of another night, where she and her friends had been surprised by a shambling mound. But a lot of time and travel had passed since then and, considering she had just been in the cellar of an abandoned building in Waterdeep, in the afternoon, she felt very disoriented to now be in a forest at nighttime.

She wasn't the only one.

"Where are we?" Aleina asked.

"This is very interesting," Volo said, "I think we might be in some sort of pocket dimension."

The little man in the floppy hat rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully as he stared about. Following the revelation that the ghost of the former tavern keeper, Lif, was not the only haunting of Trollskull Manor, they'd descended to the cellar. The spirit had triggered the magic portal he'd accidentally discovered when alive, and they'd been transported here.

"More importantly," Fargas said. "Where is the portal back out?"

Jhelnae turned and found the halfling question to be very relevant. The shimmering magic doorway she'd seen before finding herself here was nowhere in sight.

"I don't remember stepping through anything," Kuhl said. "Do any of you?"

"No," Sky said, shaking her head. "All I remember is seeing it form. Oval shaped with swirling colors."

Jhelnae nodded. She remembered the same. From the moment it had flickered into existence, she'd been drawn to it, leaning forward and studying its depths. But she was sure she hadn't taken a single step forward.

"I don't know if we are really here," Volo said. "According to Lif, he unlocked this place by accident, but I know his body was found in the cellar. Everyone assumed he'd died of a heart attack while stacking kegs. But if he came here, did his body get kicked back out into the cellar? Or did his body remain in the cellar while some part of him, mind or spirit, came here?"

Aleina hugged herself, rubbing her arms against the pervading chill.

"Well, it certainly feels like we are really here," she said.

The half-drow agreed and copied the aasimar's attempts to warm herself.

"I can't hear Dawnbringer," Kuhl said, voice panicked.

He put a hand to his temple, then pulled her free from where she hung at his belt and held her up. No dazzling blade of radiance burst forth from the sword hilt.

A worrying premonition entered Jhelnae's mind as she held her hand out to the side and mentally reached for the power of the Demonweb. Try as she might, none of the now familiar cold energy coursed into her and no mist coalesced at her summons to form her abyssal sword.

No!

She closed her eyes and tried again. Terror washed through her as she found nothing. Her powers were gone. Cut off. She was once again back to being that same helpless girl who'd been taken as a battle captive. Back to the same helpless girl who couldn't stop a vampire from feeding on her during her captivity. Back to the same helpless girl the Thayans used as a hostage against her mother.

"No, no, no, no…" Aleina whispered.

Jhelnae opened her eyes. The aasimar clutched at her moonstone orb and stared into it. She used the orb as a focus for her magic. But the sorceress also seemed to be having trouble accessing her power, as, despite Aleina's furrowed brow of concentration, nothing happened. Not even a flicker of light appeared in the pale stone's depths.

"You can't use your magic?" the half-drow asked.

The aasimar shook her head in response, even as she frantically kept trying.

"Neither can I," Jhelnae said.

"No Dawnbringer," Kuhl said. "No magic."

He seemed a little calmer than the half-drow felt or than the aasimar looked. No surprise there. Even without his paladin spells and sword of radiance, he remained big and strong. Meanwhile, Jhelnae felt helpless.

"This is great," Fargas said. "Just great. We came down to the cellar to destroy a hag ghost and the three who could actually harm her…"

He trailed off. The half-drow heard it as well. The sound of sobbing came from somewhere nearby in the forest. After a shared look, the companions made their way through the haze and mist towards the sound, Kuhl and Sky leading the way through the trees.

A young girl with tangled and matted auburn, ringlet hair came into sight. Her pale cheeks were splotched and reddened from crying and streaked with tears. She wore a white night dress smudged with dirt and her feet were bare. She was a pretty little thing despite her dishevelment, just on the cusp of womanhood. When she noticed their approach, she stopped crying and looked up fearfully.

"Don't worry." Kuhl crouched down a few paces away from the girl to make himself smaller and less threatening. "We're not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

"Carina," the nervous voice came.

"Carina," the half-elf said. "That's a pretty name. What are you doing out here? Are you lost? Do you need help?"

"Does she need help?" Fargas mumbled. "What a dumb question. She is barefoot and crying in the middle of a forest wearing only her night clothes."

Aleina silenced him with a forceful nudge. The girl didn't seem to have heard anyway.

She shook her head. "I'm not lost. I don't live too far away. It's my sister…"

Carina burst into a fresh set of tears.

"Is your sister hurt?" Kuhl asked. "Does she need help?"

The girl calmed herself with a few shuddering breaths.

"She went insane!" Carina wailed. "She chased me out of the house with a knife! I think…I think she killed the rest of my family."

"When you say your sister and your family," Aleina said, also crouching down. "Do you mean your family and sister in the orphanage?"

"Orphanage?" Carina asked, confused. "I don't live in an orphanage. I'm a Brightheart. These lands are ours."

For a brief moment, her chin lifted imperiously. Then she lowered her gaze again and fresh tears tracked down her cheeks.

Jhelnae understood Aleina's question. They were supposedly in the sanctuary of a long dead hag. A hag who had run an orphanage. None of this was real and the aasimar was attempting to figure out how it related back to the ghost of the hag they'd come to destroy.

"Your sister," Sky said, tail lashing and voice a sympathetic purr. "Is there any reason she would go crazy like you say?"

The girl shook her head, sending her ringlet locks swinging. "There was no reason for her to go crazy. But she has always been nasty and hateful. Our birthday was coming up and she ruined it. Like she ruins everything!"

Carina's eyes then widened in wonder as she fully took in the tabaxi.

"You're a cat person," she whispered in wonder.

"Tabaxi," Sky said. "Red Sky In The Morning. Your birthday? You share a birthday?"

"We're twins," the girl said. "But we look nothing alike."

"Ah," Volo said, to himself, nodding in understanding.

Jhelnae, Aleina, and Fargas all looked over at the little man, but Kuhl and Sky were too engrossed in the conversation with the girl to notice.

"What do you mean, 'Ah'?" the aasimar asked, standing.

"I think I know what is going on," Volo whispered.

"Well," Jhelnae said. "Maybe you should let the rest of us know."

The little man glanced at the girl, then backed off a few steps. The three companions not talking with Carina followed his lead and moved out of earshot.

"Have you read my book, Volo's Guide to Monsters?" Volo asked in a low tone. "Specifically, the entry on hags?"

He sighed when all three shook their heads.

"Every adventurer should," he said. "The information I've compiled there will keep you alive. When you buy a copy, make sure to buy a new printing, not one pre-owned. I don't get any royalties off…"

"Volo…" Jhelnae warned.

"We promise to buy copies," Aleina said, at the same time. "Newly printed ones. Later. Now tell us what you might have figured out."

"Yes, well," the little man said. "How old would you say that child is?"

Aleina shrugged. "I don't know. Twelve? Thirteen?"

"I think so as well," the little man said. "Which means her twin would be the same age. And, if you'd read my book, you'd know that hags reproduce by stealing human infants, devouring them, and giving birth to a girl."

"That is absolutely vile and disgusting," Jhelnae hissed, her stomach turning at the thought.

"All the stories talk about them eating children," Fargas said with a shudder. "I used to have a nightmare of a coven of blind hags mistaking me for a child. But I never heard the part about them reproducing that way."

"Luckily for all of us," the little man said. "They rarely reproduce. When they do, their offspring are often a replica of the child they stole. At least at first, that way, they can be 'miraculously' found again so the mortal parents raise them. Hags are not the best nurturers you see."

"Which makes them a really bad choice to, I don't know, run an orphanage," Fargas said. "That and the whole eating of children."

"You aren't wrong," Volo said, nodding, as if the halfling had just said something profound. "At any rate, if certain dark rituals are performed, their offspring becomes a hag on her 13th birthday."

Aleina shook her head, brow furrowing in thought. "Are you saying this is what is happening here? This is all a re-enactment of the night of Carina's sister's transformation?"

"It is what ghosts do," Volo said. "They can't move on because they fixate on something. Something traumatic. The transformation to a hag in your thirteenth year would be pretty traumatic."

"She said their family's name is Brightheart," Fargas said. "And the hag chose the name of Granny Nightheart. It fits."

Aleina had gone from shaking her head to nodding. "It does. So, what do we have to do?"

"I don't know," Volo said. "Maybe the hag always regretted killing her twin? Maybe we have to symbolically save her?"

Another thought struck Jhelnae.

"If all of this is a ghostly projection," the half-drow asked with a wave to indicate their surroundings. "What is she?"

The little man glanced at the crying girl and shrugged. "A figment of a ghostly imagination? Or, she could even truly be the spirit of Carina, somehow so entangled with that of her twin that she can't move on to the afterlife until her hag sister does."

"If it is the latter," the aasimar said. "That would be so sad. She'd have suffered for so long."

She gave a sympathetic look at the girl still talking with Kuhl and Sky.

"And if it is the former," Fargas said. "We can't really trust her, can we?"

"No," Volo said. "Not at all."

"Either way, we need to find her sister," the half-drow said. "And deal with her if we want to escape this place."

"I think you are right," the little man said.

They all shared looks and nods before approaching the girl again.

"We're going to help Carina with her sister," Sky said as they approached. "And find out what happened to her family."

"I still think it would be best if you stayed here," Kuhl said, still crouched near the girl. "Let us deal with whatever we find in the house."

"Don't leave me here all alone," Carina whimpered.

And despite what they'd just discussed, that the girl was either a lingering spirit herself or a creation of a ghost hag's dark fantasy, Carina looked so sweet, innocent, and helpless that Jhelnae's heart went out to the girl.

"You wouldn't be left alone," the half-elf soothed. "Some of us would stay with you."

The half-drow and aasimar glanced at each other. Splitting up would not be wise, trapped as they were in some sort of nightmare haunting. But it was the girl herself who dismissed the idea.

"Would you be staying with me?" she asked, looking at Kuhl.

The half-elf shook his head. "Not me. I need to go with those searching the house."

Her gaze went to each of the group around her and seemed to decide no one other than Kuhl was an adequate protector. Without their magic, Jhelnae couldn't really blame the girl. She might be right.

"Then I'll come too," Carina said.

Kuhl sighed and nodded. "Well then, you don't have any shoes. Climb up on my back."

He turned and, with all the nimbleness of limber and lanky youth, the girl clambered up.

"You're very strong," she said as he stood.

"Yes, yes," Sky said with a dismissive wave. "Kuhl is very good at carrying things. It is why we keep him around. Now, which way to your house?"

Carina pointed and they made their way through mist filled forest. The trees thinned, then disappeared altogether as they entered a large clearing. The shadowy form of a building or series of buildings stood at its center, barely visible through the haze. A well-traveled dirt road cut through the clearing and the companions joined it as they moved forward, the crunch of frosted grass giving way to the different crunch of dirt and gravel underfoot. Details of the stone manor house sharpened as they drew closer.

A ten-foot-high stone wall joined with the two story dwelling. A gatehouse, one of the stout double doors wide open, led to a courtyard. A pond of dark water lay outside the wall as well as dormant gardens that would be planted and cultivated in spring. A spring, given what this place was, that would never come. The road went from dirt and gravel to cobblestone just before the gatehouse.

"Kuhl," Aleina said. "I think it would be best if you put Carina down now and had your hands free."

"She still doesn't have shoes," the half-elf responded.

"She ran all the way to where we found her," the aasimar said. "She is brave and resilient."

"I'll be fine," the girl said. "She is right. I walk around here barefoot all the time. But usually in summer."

She climbed down off Kuhl's back.

"Does anyone live in the gatehouse?" Fargas asked. "Someone we could wake up to help us?"

"Father only has it manned in times of unrest or invasion," Carina said. "Everyone has quarters inside the manor."

The half-elf led the way through the gatehouse and into the courtyard, Sky trailing just behind and the rest following with the girl protectively in the middle of them. The cobblestone path widened into a plaza with a dry fountain at its center, then reforming into a path again that led stone steps topped by a porch and the manor entry. The yard was dark and empty with no signs of life.

"Anyone stay in the stables or smithy?" Fargas said, pointing at the wooden buildings he named. "Or chapel?"

The last was a stone hall like structure, relatively small, but with a raised roof nearly as tall as the two-story manor and elegant windows.

"Everyone has quarters inside the manor," Carina repeated. "And we have no resident priest. Jocosa comes to us from the village for family worship."

"The manor then," Kuhl said.

"Be careful," the girl said. "Serene was crazy and the knife she was trying to stab me with was dripping something dark that looked dangerous."

"How did you get away?" Aleina asked as they circled the stone fountain.

"I caught her creeping into my bedroom holding the knife," Carina said, voice shaking in fear at the memory. "And I jumped up and ran. That surprised her and I was able to get out of my room. She blocked the way to father and mother, but that meant I was free to run to the door. She is heavy and slow, so once I was out the door and out of the walls, I knew she could never catch me. She knew it too, which is why she gave up so quickly."

"You didn't scream?" the aasimar asked. "Wake everyone else up and warn them?"

To Jhelnae there seemed to be a hesitation before the answer came, so brief the half-drow might have imagined it.

"I did," the girl said. "I yelled as loud as I could. But no one came. At least in the time it took me to reach the door and escape. She was right behind me, and I didn't have time to wait for help. There was a body on the stairs I had to leap over on the way down. Our servant Jurian, already dead. I don't know who else she killed before I screamed. I'm hoping someone woke up and stopped her."

If the inhabitants had woken up, Jhelnae thought, they hadn't roused the rest of the household nor sent a search party out for Carina. The windows of the house were all dark except for a flickering orange glow in one upper story window.

"What room is that?" the half-drow asked, pointing up.

"That would be Serene's room," the girl said.

She quickly looked away from the lit window.

"What will happen to her?" she mumbled. "As crazy as she is, she might be the only family I have left."

"We're going to catch and restrain her," Kuhl said. "Maybe she is under a curse of madness that can be cured. Perhaps by this Jocosa in the village."

The half-elf had not been part of the conversation with Volo where they had guessed the nature of the place and there was no way to tell him, or Sky, now without Carina overhearing. Besides, he could even be right. Maybe some sort of symbolic cleansing ritual by the local priest was what was required for the hag's spirit to move on. The others seemed to come to the same conclusion as they also remained silent.

They went up the stone steps, pausing only briefly to gather their courage on the porch, before pushing open the main entry door and moving inside. A spacious foyer was beyond, a darkened chandelier hanging from its raised ceiling. A curving stone staircase rose from the flagstone floor to a balcony above. The body of a middle-aged human male lay on his back at the base of the stairs. The drying pool of blood from the stab wounds on his chest were now darker than the red carpet runner going up the center of the steps.

"Jurian?" Kuhl asked as he knelt next to the body and went through the motions of feeling for a pulse.

Carina nodded, hand over her mouth as she looked on in horror.

"There is another body over here," Sky called out. "We're too late for him, poor kid."

This smaller corpse was under the archway leading to another room, a great hall by the look of it. A massive fireplace was just visible, orange embers aglow, with another stone fire pit at the center, also with low fire still burning. The metal spit over the latter showed this one was meant for cooking.

"Wyrian," the girl said, voice choked with emotion. "He was the boy in charge of keeping the fires burning."

Kuhl walked over to where a pair of crossed swords decorated the wall and drew one down. He shook his head when he examined the edge but offered it to Jhelnae despite finding it lacking. It wasn't her abyssal blade, but she was the daughter of two paladins and trained in the longsword. She nodded and accepted, finding it weighty, unbalanced, and dull. But without her abyssal blade, it would have to do. The half-elf pulled down the other for himself.

"I thought you were going to capture and restrain her?" Carina said.

"We are," Kuhl answered. "But we don't know the source of her madness. There could be something else in the house."

The girl's eyes widened, and she glanced around fearfully.

Skirting the body of the fallen Jurian, they headed up the step. Even though she knew they faced a hag ghost, and that the decorative sword would do little against her, Jhelnae gripped the hilt tightly and felt reassured by its presence in her hand. Once on the landing above, they were eye level with the chandelier. A stone railing with thick banisters bordered the balcony and thick throw rugs covered most of the flagstone floor. Small tables, chairs, and sofas as well as a bookshelf showed that this was a lived-in space. All the thick wood doors off the landing were ajar, but only one had the flickering glow of candle or lantern light coming from beyond it.

"That room is my little brother's," Carina said, indicating the one closest to the top of the stairs.

Kuhl pushed it open further, peered inside, then closed it. He avoided meeting the girl's gaze, looked at the companions instead and shook his head, a haunted look in his eyes. Aleina reached out and gave him a brief, gentle touch on the shoulder.''

He moved to the door with the light called inside.

"Serene," he said. "We're here with your sister. Throw down the knife and put your hands on your head. We're here to help cure you of this madness."

There was no answer.

"Stay here," he said to Carina.

Slowly, carefully, he entered the room, Sky following and then the rest of them, one by one, leaving the girl at the doorway. Another girl, this one dark haired and more heavy set, lay propped up with pillows against the headboard. It was obvious at a glance the twins were in no way identical. Serene's hair was coarse and hung limp rather than in the auburn ringlets of her sister. She also didn't have the lithe thinness of other, nor her sharp delicate cheekbones. Still, not an unattractive girl, certainly no hag. She simply lacked all the attributes that made Carina seem destined to be a great beauty and heart breaker. The girl still had not stirred and stared, glassy eyed, at the wall opposite here.

"Serene?" the half-elf called.

No answer and no movement. Not even a glance in his direction. The girl in the bed continued to have the same faraway stare. Her skin had a waxy, unhealthy pallor, all of her color drained away.

Kuhl reached out tentative fingers and withdrew them immediately at contact with Serene's throat.

"She is cold," the half-elf said. "And covered in something sticky."

He held the fingers that had touched the body up to look at them more closely.

"Did she kill herself?" Sky asked. "Some sort of poison?"

But even as the tabaxi asked the question, the illusion fell away, and a wide gaping slit appeared at the girl's neck. Blood covered everything, the corpse, the bedding, and the floor beyond in a spray pattern from the wound.

"But if she is dead…" Fargas said, trailing off.

"Poor, plain, sweet, and stupid Serene," Carina called out from the doorway to the room.

Her voice was changed, mocking with a cutting and cruel edge.

Jhelnae turned and the girl they had rescued from the forest had also transformed. She still had the ringlet curls, still had the delicate facial features, still was barefoot, and still wore a white night dress. But now, all of her was covered in drying blood and she held a knife in her hand. A wicked, dangerous looking weapon that dripped something dark and venomous looking.

"The irony of it is," Carina said. "I was the favored child. Even though I was no true child of theirs. All because I looked like this, and they looked like they did. I could get away with any mischief I thought of. I could get the servants beaten with my lies or get my sister's pony sent away just by claiming it always tried to bite me."

The girl with the knife smiled, and it was a twisted mockery of the sweetness that had been present before.

"And I did it all because I was bored." she said. "Bored of this little insignificant backwater that I hated with all my heart. So, imagine my delight when learning from my real mother I could have power. Power and immortality if I performed just one little dark ritual. Made one little sacrifice of a household of stupid and easily manipulated people, that to me, were no sacrifice at all."

Okay...I really didn't want to do much with the haunting of Trollskull Manor. When we played through the adventure the DM gave us a few creepy occurrences and then said, "As the spirit sees you are trying to fix up the tavern and reopen it, he becomes helpful."

Which is basically rules as written. So when I thought about putting the party in Waterdeep Dragonheist any thing to do with Lif had an interest level for me of ZERO.

But narratively, trying to make sense of it all, I had to come up with something. So this is what I've managed to cobble together (the hag and the orphanage is part of the lore mentioned in the module). My plan was to deal with the ghost of Granny Nightheart in one short and simple chapter. But I'm already over 4,000 words and I haven't even started the fight with her and her ghostly minions. Plus I actually am supposed to be working! But I got on a roll and couldn't stop typing. :)