Greater Sea Hag

Greater sea hags are wrinkled, withered crones with green scales, iron claws, burning red eyes and seaweed-green hair draping their bodies. Some look exactly like the lesser kind; others stand out by their greater size and force of personality. Some believe they descend from twisted servants created by Thessaryne, princess of evil water creatures on the Elemental Plane of Water, which would make the lesser sea hags, and maybe every other hag, a decayed bloodline sprung from them.

Lacking the lesser hag's deadly glance, a greater sea hag instead charms with a look three times a day, simply by meeting the eyes of a thinking creature. The charm lasts until the hag dies or it is dispelled, with no repeated saves over time. She is immune to charm, suggestion and all other mind-affecting magic and psionics. Seeing her true form forces a save vs. spell or the viewer loses half his Strength for 1d6 turns.

With change self she can mimic any sea creature, typically a lovely one like a nereid or mermaid, and uses the guise to lead sailors onto rocks and reefs. Once the ship sinks, she claims the treasure and eats the drowned crew at leisure.

Her real danger is spellcasting: she casts as a mage whose level equals her Hit Dice and may know any wizard spell she is high enough to use. Typical picks top out at 4th level. For deception she favors ventriloquism, phantasmal and spectral force, mirror image, blur, invisibility and its improved form, audible glamer and dancing lights; for control, web, slow, sleep, hold person, suggestion, confusion, emotion, taunt, tears of the crocodile, ray of enfeeblement, enervation, blindness, curse, polymorph other and both charm spells; for offense, shocking grasp, magic missile, stinking cloud, shatter, lightning bolt, shout, phantasmal killer and black tentacles; for defense and travel, shield, blink, haste, levitate, enlarge, expeditious retreat, dimension door, polymorph self, protection from good, protection from normal missiles and the minor globe of invulnerability; and for information, ESP, tongues, clairaudience, clairvoyance, wizard eye, locate object, know alignment and detect good. She may also call on dispel magic, darkness 15' radius, plant growth, and monster summoning I and II.

A few are psionic wild talents with erratic powers rather than trained disciplines. When forced into direct combat, which they avoid, they use daggers or short swords, and their 18/00 Strength grants +3 to hit and +6 to damage.

They lair in undersea caves heaped with salvage from wrecks, or in a sunken ship's captain's cabin if it is grand enough. They need sea salt to live and spend long hours grinding it with magical rock-crushing devices. Otherwise they hunt and enlarge their hoards with help from charmed servants or evil sea creatures. They know their home waters so well that they notice hidden intruders or new objects from small changes in the seafloor, yet they also make bold, long journeys into strange seas. Reefs, crags, rifts and wreck-strewn ship graveyards attract them, as do warm river outflows into a great inland sea.

Mercifully scarce, they rarely reproduce, envying and mistrusting every other living thing. On occasion they live among lesser sea hags but never join coveys. They can live a thousand years and speak their own language, annis and sea elf. Danger and strong opponents attract them, and they are apex predators of anything human-sized or smaller. Most sharks have learned to keep clear of their magic.