Alley Hag

Hags are widely known to be evil and hideous monsters who lair in remote and foreboding wilderness. They are deadly and the villain in many a fairytale, but civilized folk need not worry about encountering them.
It is exactly this preconception that the alley hag makes good use of.

Alley hags look like ugly elderly women, with broken tile and scrap metal and unusually large and snaggle-toothed jaws. They hide amidst the urban poor where they delight in petty evil, using nasty rumor and nasty pranks to set people against one another. Nothing delights these creatures more than to drive neighbors to murder while they cackle in the shadows.
If possible they will try to set themselves up as a sort of local wise women, feared but neccesary for the poor. Visiting bad luck and cruelty upon those who fail to heed her words.

Their powers are limited to the most minor of curses, disguising themselves and infusing stones with harmful magic. Their most versatile and potent ability is their control over the vermin that infests the cities they call home, usually rats and . These vermin minions are compelled to swarm their enemies in battle, and used as spies and messengers. This combined with minor divinations give the average alley hag impressive knowledge of the cities they reside in.
Alley hags often use occult rituals or deals with evil powers to augment their minor magical talent, and the lost children of the street are their favorite sacrifices for such magics

The least among the hags, alley hags are not very powerful combatants, they lack powerful spells and have decidedly average stats. They do make for interesting and capable low-level plot drivers though. Between disguise self, good social skills and vermin minions a coven can serve as excellent bad guys for a starting urban adventure against 1st or 2nd level party.
Alley hags are deeply familiar with the slums they live in, and will always try to move the fight to favorable terrain or use others to do their dirty work.

CR: 3
NE Medium Monstrous Humanoid
Combat Role: All-rounder

In contrast to most hags alley hags are poor spellcasters, their only combat spells are doom and magic stone. Their close combat ability is also decidedly average. Their only interesting option in a fight is the ability to summon a 5 HD or lower swarm, which should be done at the very start of the fight at the earliest. Then magic stone can be used to deal ranged damage before going melee.


The PCs need information about someone or something hidden in a large city. All the beggars and slumdwellers point them to an old woman, living alone in a rat infested shack. None of them are willing to introduce them to her however.

The cliff-cities of the Sigessua lizardfolk have few rats, pidgeons and other such common vermin. Instead a hardy desert lizard called craggthoots are the most common pests. The Sigessua will exterminate these creatures whenever found, for they believe that they attract dangerous hags when allowed to gather in numbers.

Kassei is the trusted advisor of Lochter, a famously brutal gangleader. The foul hag uses vermin to gather information and as watch-outs. She also haruspicy, her favored subjects for this are young children, whose skulls she keeps as keepsakes.

Monsters of Porphyra 2 p. 112