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From the Monster Manual, I kid you not, this is how hags are said to propagate:
They steal infants, eat them and a week later they give birth to a girl that looks human till it reaches 13 years. Sometimes the hags raise their daughters, sometimes they return them to the grieving parents to watch them turn to horrors.
Aside of the morbidity of this info, it presents a few logistical problems as of... a hag with can create like a dozen hags in a year if she bothers to do so with little trouble. Invisibility of the hag, combined with serfs that can't leave a place = hags for the win.
And then... how the child grows up? If it's a more-or-less normal child it would go mad by the sudden transition to evil fey hag. If it's a weird girl like horror movie spooky little girls wouldn't SOMEONE notice?
And this opens ANOTHER can of worms.
If there's a hag in the vicinity for some time, people would have caught on. So when a girl is "lost" for a week and then is found... chances are the inquisition would kill the hagspawn\unlucky girl.
To surmise... a hag can easily make a dozen hags per year which would probably not survive to adulthood and would just cost the lives of innocent girls.
They steal infants, eat them and a week later they give birth to a girl that looks human till it reaches 13 years. Sometimes the hags raise their daughters, sometimes they return them to the grieving parents to watch them turn to horrors.
Aside of the morbidity of this info, it presents a few logistical problems as of... a hag with can create like a dozen hags in a year if she bothers to do so with little trouble. Invisibility of the hag, combined with serfs that can't leave a place = hags for the win.
And then... how the child grows up? If it's a more-or-less normal child it would go mad by the sudden transition to evil fey hag. If it's a weird girl like horror movie spooky little girls wouldn't SOMEONE notice?
And this opens ANOTHER can of worms.
If there's a hag in the vicinity for some time, people would have caught on. So when a girl is "lost" for a week and then is found... chances are the inquisition would kill the hagspawn\unlucky girl.
To surmise... a hag can easily make a dozen hags per year which would probably not survive to adulthood and would just cost the lives of innocent girls.
Part 2: Medusas
This, I like best so far. Totally going to use it.
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So, in D&D next, we're done with medusas being a specific race. According to D&D next, not Ravenloft, but D&D next, people go to all kinds of evil trouble to get beauty... and pay a hefty price.
Some strike bargains with evil powers (fiends, liches, evil gods etc). They gain immortality, beauty, youth and the adoration of all who behold them. Quite realistically someone that's doing all kinds of bad stuff to get that, would abuse that power and live in luxury and comfort.
For a time.
And then the curse strikes and they turn to Medusas, and the people that adored them and bowed to their excellence turn to stone. So, their luxurious abodes fall to disrepair and eventually become ruins. The Medusas are still pretty in a way, but if they look at their reflection they may well turn to stone themselves.
I found that origin the best origin for Medusae, including the original myth.
Some strike bargains with evil powers (fiends, liches, evil gods etc). They gain immortality, beauty, youth and the adoration of all who behold them. Quite realistically someone that's doing all kinds of bad stuff to get that, would abuse that power and live in luxury and comfort.
For a time.
And then the curse strikes and they turn to Medusas, and the people that adored them and bowed to their excellence turn to stone. So, their luxurious abodes fall to disrepair and eventually become ruins. The Medusas are still pretty in a way, but if they look at their reflection they may well turn to stone themselves.
I found that origin the best origin for Medusae, including the original myth.