Bone-Turner Hag
Hags and oozes are both classic monsters for a reason, but sometimes the classics need a bit of an extra push to stay fresh. Naturally, the only way we could figure to make a hag meaner and crueler was to take away all of her bones, and by extension, all of your bones. Or, looking at it another way, we've made an ooze that is jealous of your bones, and that also hates you and is smarter than you. Truly, our commitment to making everything worse knows no bounds. Enjoy!
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Bone-Turner Hag
Perhaps the most grotesque of all hags, the true form of a bone-turner is an amorphous sickly-green blob, not unlike an ooze to the untrained eye. However, bone-turners are much more dangerous than an ooze, as they are much more intelligent and cruel.
Bone-turner hags possess unusually sharp pseudopods, which they use to stab into prey rather than clubbing them. These pseudopods ravage the nervous system of their victim; if a creature can’t escape the hag’s grasp, the probing pseudopods reach even deeper, wrenching at their victim’s internal body until the hag rips their very bones free.
Self-Obsessed Abominations. The original bone-turner hags were said to once have been an especially pathetic coven of green hags, weaker than nearly every threat around them. To become more formidable, these hags began to practice dark magic to morph their bodies and to steal the traits of their enemies. As the hags changed they became more and more dangerous, but even after they had come to dominate their neighbors, their obsession with ‘self- improvement’ only grew.
Soon, the hags turned on each other, each one determined to overcome the others and become ‘perfect’. In this struggle, the hags’ magic warped their bodies permanently, leaving the ones not destroyed utterly changed, with cracked minds and flesh that was corrosive and malleable. Delighted with this ‘blank slate’, the hags set out on their own, in search of more creatures to consume and steal from.
Cunning Ambushers. Bone-turner hags are obsessed with finding the perfect set of body parts and physical traits, and are constantly on the lookout for creatures with interesting new capabilities for them to steal. Using their shapeshifting, the hags can wait unnoticed for long periods before ambushing their intended prey, either by compressing into the shape of an object or by using another creature’s bones to masquerade as one of its kind. While appearing inanimate, they can ambush their prey by hurling themselves like a projectile.
Opportunistic Brokers. Bone-turners are as cruel as any other hag, but their primary concern is growing their collection; if a creature offers them an especially rare or appealing set of bones, they can be persuaded to be amiable, or even to grant someone a favor. Favors from a bone-turner are never cheap, but their mastery of anatomy and body modification makes them expert surgeons, when it suits them. Some creatures have even been said to bargain with a bone-turner to have pieces of their body permanently added to or changed, though such bargains rarely end well for the supplicant.
Bone-Turner Hag
Medium aberration (shapechanger), chaotic evil
Armor Class 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points 128 (15d8 + 60)
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft. (true form only)
STR 19 (+4)
DEX 18 (+4)
CON 19 (+4)
INT 14 (+2)
WIS 15 (+2)
CHA 16 (+3)
Skills Athletics +8, Deception +7, Perception +6, Stealth +8
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities acid
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages Common, Deep Speech, Sylvan
Challenge 9 (5,000 XP)
Shapechanger. The hag can use its action to polymorph into an object, or a bonus action to revert to its true, amorphous form. If it has stolen a creature’s bones, it can polymorph into that creature, using its bones as a frame to imitate its shape. While in another creature’s form, it gains that creature’s natural weapons, senses, and walking, swimming, and climbing speeds, but otherwise retains its own statistics. Any equipment the hag is wearing or carrying isn’t transformed. The hag reverts to its true form if it dies.
Amorphous (True Form Only). The hag can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch without squeezing.
Boneless. While the hag is in its true form or an object’s form, it has immunity to bludgeoning damage and can’t be knocked prone. If the hag takes 20 or more bludgeoning damage on one turn while in the form of a creature whose bones it has stolen, those bones are broken, and the hag is forced to expunge the ruined bones and revert to its true form.
Innate Spellcasting. The hag’s innate spellcasting ability is Constitution (spell save DC 16). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:
At will: catapult (3rd level, self only, object form only)
3/day each: meld into stone
1/day each: Evard's black tentacles
Magic Resistance. The hag has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magic effects.
Actions
Multiattack. The hag makes two attacks with its invasive pseudopod.
Invasive Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage plus 9 (2d8) acid damage. If the creature is Medium or smaller, it is grappled (escape DC 16) and must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be stunned until this grapple ends.
Extract Bones. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one incapacitated creature grappled by the hag. Hit: 55 (10d10) slashing damage. If this damage reduces the creature to 0 hit points, the hag kills the target by extracting and assimilating its bones.