Hags are often mistaken for wizened women, typically wrapped in warm but tattered robes with unkempt skin and hair, when it's visible. Despite this, hags are not actually human, simply another of the intelligent humanoids, with their wizened and sickly appearance being a facade. Hags are often full of vigor, and able to overpower travellers they encounter.
Hags, as a rule, are known for attacking humans, and are known to feign being in distress, often drowning in pools or weeping next to a scene of carnage, and then attack those who come to their aid. Some of the more established hags have been known to setup lures, like houses made of sweets and pastries, or mounds of illusory treasures. These are the most privileged of the hags, bringing people to them to consume, rather than hunting. Though they must spend their lives wary of the local populace becoming wise to them, often because people stop falling for their ruses, and not out of fear of the locals.
The main relationship between men and hags is that hags feed on the free will or soul of humans. Hags must constantly find victims to eat, though they seem to need to eat very rarely, but, like many species, enjoy the act of consumption. This means that the hags are one of the rare predators of humanity, and tend to become a part of the landscape, with maps and rumours marking the locations. Therefore hags, being quite intelligent, tend to move on regularly, even if they've spent a lot of effort setting up a lure. Their need to eat only every few decades allows them to be quite patient and selective of their victims.
The additional horror of hags is that they do not need to consume flesh, they can also consume the soul directly. Hags are known for going to the thin places between the world, often mushroom rings or sidhe, and performing a sacrificial ritual under the full moon (the pet of a human being the most common sacrifice, though a beloved item works well). This ritual allows them to pass through the moon phases, becoming less and less part of this world, until you can only see their smile, teeth, or hair in the corner of your eyes. Once the moon is new, the hag will have passed from this world until the moon is full again, and then they will reverse this process, coming back into this world.
The world they are being sent do for the half moon, is the world of Dreams. While in the world of Dreams, the hag is able to feed upon the person whose dreams they are in. The sacrificed thing determines whose dream the hag is inside. The hag then begins to ravage through the dreams, transforming them into nightmares, and slowly, and surely, ripping apart the person, their personality, and eventually finding their soul, which they can feed upon. People being ridden by hags often begin to lose their personality and feel worse and worse, until they do not awake.
Dreamwalker: Hags can sacrifice something under the light of the full moon in order to enter their dreams over the course of half a month. During the time they are transitioning into the night they begin to turn the colour of the moonless night. Once they fully blend into the night they gain the Spirit Nature trait, and become a spirit stalking the land. They can be seen or glimpsed only through the corner of the eye. Their Stealthy shade shifts one shade lighter until their new moon. Once the hag has completely transitioned into the Dream world, they begin a conflict with the person they are in the dreams of.
Every night the Hag and the victim must engage in a Bloody Vs test, with both sides using their Will as the combat skill. The goal for the Hag is to incapacitate their victim, and if this occurs, the Hag can then eat them. If the Hag is incapacitated then it is killed by the dream that it is disrupting. Hags are rarely killed while inside the dreams of a host due to their selective nature, but it's not unheard of. Once the full moon occurs again, the hag will be brought back into our world, with its shade shifted Stealthy returning to its original shade, and then the hag's raiment brightens to its original colour.
While the Hag is in the Dreamworld, things that can see or smell spirits will see them as riding on the back or chest of the person they are in the dreams of, hence this state being called hag ridden.
Soul Devourer: Hags can and will eat the essence of a person, they are not interested in flesh. When they consume someone they steal all of their remaining years. meaning that they can be sustained for years from a single meal. Hags however can cede this energy to any other being that uses the soul of beings. For example, a Hag can summon a daemon and use the leftover bits of their last meal to pay the Mortal Soul price for summoning.
Root: Agility
Forms:
2 Bare Hands
Default Actions: Strike, Avoid, Push, Lock, Charge/Tackle
A Burning Wheel Monster Every Week