The 3 Hags of Tepest

[alhoon]

I was looking for some help to make these darklords a bit more... interesting. Mostly, that seems looking them from a different light and that is something the Fraternity has been awesome at.

More or less, I find the Hags, themselves, boring. The staff they've created is nice, the potions also nice but themselves are ... lacking in my opinion. Yes, I know Darklords are not boss-monsters but story facilitators that could well never be encountered. In that regard, the bland and tasteless Hags are superb.
Deal with a parasitic colony of weird goblins, that have been warped with dark magic and spread a disease. Destroy Blackroot, the tree-turned-evil-treant. Defeat the warped boar or wolf that terrorizes the hamlet. All so nice...
but the hags themselves are more boring than the average Ravenloft hag!

[jamesfirecat]

The biggest problem that I have with the Hags, is that I'm not sure they're suffering enough. As a general rule whenever I find a Darklord is uninteresting, I make their curse worse, make their situation more horrific, give them something more that they desire but can never have.

So how can we make the hags suffer more?

How about we introduce a Knight into the land of Tepest, one of those Shinning Armor completely gallant types who typically aren't supposed to exist in Ravenloft.

Then each of the Hags is in love with him, weather they want to be or not.

Followed up by each of the other two hags constantly spoiling things for their sisters, which is ultimately allowing the knight to spoil more of their other plans because they can't bring themselves to kill him and any time they start to get him wrapped around their fingers the other two metaphorically barge in to pull back the curtain.

Granted unrequited love is such a dead horse trope in Ravenloft that it'll probably be rising from its own grave any day now, but if you don't like that idea I think it is at least on the right track.

When in doubt, if a darklord (or dark lords) are not interesting, make them suffer more that advice I stand behind 100%.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

I took a cue from the hags of Magic: the Gathering's "Shadowmoor."

Magic's wiki says:

Shadowmoor legends said that swamp hags were previously goddesses who had watched over the woodland marshes. Once they fell from grace, they were twisted and transformed into grotesque huntresses who stalk swamps and forests for prey.

Perhaps in Tepest, their inability to return to their original "goddess" status, no matter what they do, is their curse.

[vyshan]

Another issue is that the three hags, all share the darklord title between them. It might be better to make one of them the darklord and the others her minions.

[Satyrwyld]

I'm being lazy and not double checking, but I seem to recall that part of their curse is that they don't trust each other, if not outright hate each other, but they're stuck with each other. Immediately before their curse, they were each planning to betray the other two, and they all know it. Now, their power and relative prosperity depends on having to suffer the presence of two horrible, backstabbing monstrosities. Bonus points for "and if it wasn't for them, I would never have wound up this hideous creature, and would have escaped farm life and been beautiful in the big city and all the men would have loved me, and me alone." They can't even have this new power all to themselves, each has to share it with those two backstabbing wretches, who are the ones who *really* deserve this punishment. Darklords are, by nature, unable to see their own flaws, and that feels like the sort of blame game they would play.

They can't outright destroy each other, because of the nature of their relationship, but they could certainly operate independently of each other to screw over the others' individual plans. This one foments the Inquisition in a small village to benefit from the carnage, so that one provides a convenient travelling scapegoat, while the third taints the water supply with a potion of some sort. They'll band together out of pure survival-based necessity, or grit their teeth to do something that requires pooling their powers (with the one benefiting the most possibly having to bribe her sisters), but anything less than a mortal threat has them bickering over who deserves to reap the benefits of the situation, who owes whom for some imgined slight, or who is the most skilled at a given task, thus should be the one entrusted with it (because he sisters will just either screw it up, or stab her in the back, after all).

Even if I'm misremembering, I think it would add a certain layer of ironic hell to the trio that's otherwise lacking.

[Manofevil]

Interesting. I was going to suggest that the Darklordship shift unpredictably from one to the other just to mess with them all the way the DPs do. Imagine one trying to close the borders and suddenly she can't do it when she could a minute ago, but I think Satyrwyld has a better take.

[High Priest Mikhal]

Satyr seems to have the best idea. They're supposed to be a Gothic version of evil witches from the old faerie tales but they never did come across as more than background dressing. Mainly because they don't seem to do anything. Beyond killing people to eat, is there anything they've actually done?

[alhoon]

Mainly because they don't seem to do anything. Beyond killing people to eat, is there anything they've actually done?

A lot of stuff. They made Bloodroot, the evil treant. They arm the goblins with magic. They warp the animals and plants in Tepest.
Compared to Soth that just sits on his throne, they're quite active.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Mainly because they don't seem to do anything. Beyond killing people to eat, is there anything they've actually done?

A lot of stuff. They made Bloodroot, the evil treant. They arm the goblins with magic. They warp the animals and plants in Tepest.
Compared to Soth that just sits on his throne, they're quite active.

Is any of that for a greater purpose or plan, though? Or just for fun/sowing chaos? That's the problem I always had with them. It just seems like "bad stuff happens, blame the witches." Which has a certain historical precedent, but doesn't give them much motivation.

[alhoon]

Well, the majority of darklords don't have a big evil plan. Ivan, Ivana, Malken, Timothy, etc don't have a plan. Even Strahd just wants Tatiana and his "plan" is to keep looking for her in his domain, generation after generation.
Actually from all I can think the only ones that have a grand plan are: Azalin, Drakov, Jaqueline and Hazlik.

[jamesfirecat]

I think... now that I am starting to get a bit of a handle on this, the problem is that while the Hags do things in Tepest, you never get the feeling that they are INVESTED in the things they are doing. If one evil plot fails, so what they'll just cackle to themselves plot revenge, and come up with another dozen over the course of the next week.

They never feel like what they're doing is important enough to them to make them really hate the PCs from the bottom of their hearts if the PCs get in the way of it, the same way that say Strahd hates anyone who comes between him and the latest incarnation of his love, or Maligno would hate the PCs if they saved a bunch of adults from his clutches.

I think that might be one useful measuring stick for how fleshed out a darklord is, do you know what the PCs would need to do to make the Darklord hate them from the bottom of their blackened heart?

Does that make sense?

[alhoon]

It does, but I respectfully disagree. I don't mind darklords not hating the PCs. I'm fine with the Darklords never meeting the PCs.
I could boil down the whole thing to "the hags are not interesting, Tepest is". I don't remember their names, I don't remember their background, their curse, their story... All I remember is that they do cool stuff. Whether they do evil stuff for the shake of evil or for a purpose is not my main problem.

[brilliantlight]

I'm being lazy and not double checking, but I seem to recall that part of their curse is that they don't trust each other, if not outright hate each other, but they're stuck with each other. Immediately before their curse, they were each planning to betray the other two, and they all know it. Now, their power and relative prosperity depends on having to suffer the presence of two horrible, backstabbing monstrosities. Bonus points for "and if it wasn't for them, I would never have wound up this hideous creature, and would have escaped farm life and been beautiful in the big city and all the men would have loved me, and me alone." They can't even have this new power all to themselves, each has to share it with those two backstabbing wretches, who are the ones who *really* deserve this punishment. Darklords are, by nature, unable to see their own flaws, and that feels like the sort of blame game they would play.

They can't outright destroy each other, because of the nature of their relationship, but they could certainly operate independently of each other to screw over the others' individual plans. This one foments the Inquisition in a small village to benefit from the carnage, so that one provides a convenient travelling scapegoat, while the third taints the water supply with a potion of some sort. They'll band together out of pure survival-based necessity, or grit their teeth to do something that requires pooling their powers (with the one benefiting the most possibly having to bribe her sisters), but anything less than a mortal threat has them bickering over who deserves to reap the benefits of the situation, who owes whom for some imgined slight, or who is the most skilled at a given task, thus should be the one entrusted with it (because he sisters will just either screw it up, or stab her in the back, after all).

Even if I'm misremembering, I think it would add a certain layer of ironic hell to the trio that's otherwise lacking.

Definitely a good idea here. Another thing that would help would be to differentiate them. Outside of their stats there is little difference between them. For example one could have loved music but since she has been a hag all music sounds trite to her. She longs to hear a good singer but she never can find one. Another of them could have loved fancy clothes (which she bought with stolen money and hid from her father) but all she finds is plain clothing amongst these rustic hicks. Another be into jewelry (stolen from victims and hidden from her father.) but the only jewelry she finds is cheap and tawdry . Note that the "fancy clothes" and jewelry were by their standards. They were merely middle or upper middle class clothing and jewels and a noble would turn his nose up at them but it was the best they ever seen in their back country area. Mostly they put them on pretending they were in town and fantasying how all the young men would swoon at their fancy outfits. After they became dark lords the dark powers gave them visions in dreams about what nobles and royalty really wear and they would turn up their noses at what impressed them before. They remember the clothes and jewelry as being much better than they actually were. This provides them with various motives, hooks for plots against each other and differentiates them.

[Dark Angel]

It does, but I respectfully disagree. I don't mind darklords not hating the PCs. I'm fine with the Darklords never meeting the PCs.
I could boil down the whole thing to "the hags are not interesting, Tepest is". I don't remember their names, I don't remember their background, their curse, their story... All I remember is that they do cool stuff. Whether they do evil stuff for the shake of evil or for a purpose is not my main problem.

Pretty much spot on. I just had my group stomp through the domain and I was a rare occasion when I planned nothing for an encounter (even if indirectly influenced) by a darklord of a domain. I had more fun beating the hell out of them with some fey creatures than anything else.

[alhoon]

Truth is, I may "de-darklord" them and pass the domain to Loht of the Shadow fey or something.