Page 126 - Curse of Strahd_Neat

CHAPTER 6: OLD BONEGRINDER

NCE A GRAIN MILL THAT SERVED VALLAKI, DREAM PASTRIES
this slouching windmill is now home
to three night hags: Morgantha and her These pastries look and taste like small mincemeat
wretched daughters, Bella Sunbane pies. A creature that eats one in its entirety must suc­
and Offalia Wormwiggle. The hags are ceed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or fall into
trapped in Barovia, but they like it here. a trance that lasts for ld4 + 4 hours, during which time
Using their Change Shape action to look the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of O feet.
like Barovian women-a frumpy mother and her two The trance ends if the affected creature takes any dam­
homely daughters-the hags snatch children, devour age or if someone else uses an action to shake the crea­
them, and use the windmill's grindstone to crush their ture out of its stupor.
little bones into powder. This powder is a key ingredient While in the trance, the creature dreams of being in
in the hags' dream pastries, which they offer to Barovian some joyous place, far removed from the evils of the
adults who are desperate to escape Strahd's domain. world. The places and characters in the dream are vivid
Made with the bones of the innocent, the hags' dream and believable, and when the dream ends, the affected
pastries allow Barovians to enter a trance, wherein they creature experiences a longing to return to the place.
can escape to heavenly places full of joy. When adults
can no longer afford the hag's dream pastries, the hags APPROACHING THE
offer to trade their pastries for the Barovians' children, WINDMILL
thus preying on the adults' selfishness while acquiring
the ingredients they need to make more pastries. This The windmill's stone walls are easily climbed. Wooden
is how the hags sow corruption in Strahd's domain and floors separate the various levels. There are no lights
why they don't take the children by force. The hags are within, since the hags have darkvision.
interested only in children who have souls. They prick
each child with a needle; if the child cries, that's a sign
that the infant has a soul. The Old Svalich Road transitions here from being a
winding path through the Balinok Mountains to a lazy
MORGANTHA'S COVEN trail that hugs the mountainside as it descends into a
The hags possess the shared spellcasting abilities of a fog-filled valley. In the heart of the valley you see a walled
coven (see the "Hag Covens" sidebar in the hags entry town near the shores of a great mountain lake, its waters
in the Monster Manual). If one or more hags die, the dark and still. A branch in the road leads west to a prom­
coven is broken. Morgantha tolerates her daughters only ontory, atop which is perched a dilapidated stone wind­
because they help her complete the coven. If one of them
dies, Morgantha sets out to abduct and consume a hu­ mill, its warped wooden vanes stripped bare.
man child so that she can give birth to a new daughter
(as described in the Monster Manual).
Morgantha gave her coven's hag eye to Cyrus Belview,
Strahd's disfigured manservant (see chapter 4, area
K62), so that she could spy on Castle Ravenloft and keep
an eye on the vampire. The hags are fearful of Strahd
and respect his dominion over this land. For more in­
formation on the hag eye, see the hags entry in the Mon­
ster Manual.

DREAMS ARE FOR THE LMNG.
-Strahd von Zarovich