Winter Hag

The Tupilaq entry is now up!  That one’s got some personal resonance for me, so be sure to check it out.

Winter hags are the frosty branch of the hag family tree, and the most powerful (aside from the outsider night hags).  They are the ice queens of fairy tales and Narnia, only more deadly—as if carved from black ice rather than snow, wielding frost quarterstaves and belching gouts of blinding cold. 

They are also hungry.  If one thing sets winter hags apart, it’s that their appetites are barely held in check.  Even their own troops have as much to fear from them as their enemies.  Had Hansel and Gretel been captured by one of these creatures, it's doubtful either one would have lasted long enough to see Hansel fattened…

The party travels to an isolated wizard’s tower, only to discover the man is long gone, replaced by a simulacrum.  Now for once they need to fight their way out of a mage’s sanctum, rather than into it—but the layout has suddenly utterly changed, the house’s guardians have turned against them, and the winter hag coven responsible for it all is hunting them…

The drow scouts were delighted with the arctic at first—the sun never rose, and in a winter hag they found an ally whose jet skin and magic and ruthlessness seemed to match their own.  But now they realize to their horror that they are trapped as the vassals of a creature who may also regard them as meat for her larder.  Worse yet, they have come to understand that six months of daylight is fast approaching.  The desperate drow will fight adventurers at the winter hag’s command, but can be easily coerced into turning on her…but only if the sellswords seem strong enough to win.

An army of humanoids digs through the permafrost, unearthing frozen megaloceros carcasses, mammoth bones, stone obelisks, and a large something else that defies description.  A winter hag and her yuki-onna aide oversee the work…which would be going faster, if the hag didn't keep eating the foremen.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 279

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