Curse of Strahd

Chapter 6: Old Bonegrinder

Once a grain mill that served Vallaki, this slouching windmill is now home to three night hags: Morgantha and her wretched daughters, Bella Sunbane and Offalia Wormwiggle. The hags are trapped in Barovia, but they like it here. Using their Change Shape action to look like Barovian women—a frumpy mother and her two homely daughters—the hags snatch children, devour them, and use the windmill's grindstone to crush their little bones into powder. This powder is a key ingredient in the hags' dream pastries, which they offer to Barovian adults who are desperate to escape Strahd's domain.

Made with the bones of the innocent, the hags' dream pastries allow Barovians to enter a trance, wherein they can escape to heavenly places full of joy. When adults can no longer afford the hag's dream pastries, the hags offer to trade their pastries for the Barovians' children, thus preying on the adults' selfishness while acquiring the ingredients they need to make more pastries. This is how the hags sow corruption in Strahd's domain and why they don't take the children by force. The hags are interested only in children who have souls. They prick each child with a needle; if the child cries, that's a sign that the infant has a soul.

Dreams are for the living.
— Strahd von Zarovich

Morgantha's Coven

The hags possess the shared spellcasting abilities of a coven (see the "Hag Covens" sidebar in the hags entry in the Monster Manual). If one or more hags die, the coven is broken. Morgantha tolerates her daughters only because they help her complete the coven. If one of them dies, Morgantha sets out to abduct and consume a human child so that she can give birth to a new daughter (as described in the Monster Manual).

Morgantha gave her coven's hag eye to Cyrus Belview, Strahd's disfigured manservant (see chapter 4, x), so that she could spy on Castle Ravenloft and keep an eye on the vampire. The hags are fearful of Strahd and respect his dominion over this land. For more information on the hag eye, see the hags entry in the Monster Manual.

Dream Pastries

These pastries look and taste like small mincemeat pies. A creature that eats one in its entirety must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or fall into a trance that lasts for 1d4 + 4 hours, during which time the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0 feet. The trance ends if the affected creature takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor.

While in the trance, the creature dreams of being in some joyous place, far removed from the evils of the world. The places and characters in the dream are vivid and believable, and when the dream ends, the affected creature experiences a longing to return to the place.

Approaching the Windmill

The windmill's stone walls are easily climbed. Wooden floors separate the various levels. There are no lights within, since the hags have darkvision.

Closer investigation of the windmill yields a few more details:

A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Insight) check senses that the raven is trying to warn the party. After delivering its message, the raven flies off toward Vallaki, the town in the valley below (see chapter 5).

Beyond the windmill is the forest. Once atop the windmill's hill, the characters can see a ring of four squat megaliths at the forest's edge. Ravens can be seen circling in the air above the stones, which are described at the end of the chapter.

Areas of the Windmill

The following areas correspond to labels on the map of Old Bonegrinder below.

O1. Ground Floor

The ceiling here is 8 feet high. If the characters explore the room, read:

Baking in the oven are a dozen dream pastries. Morgantha checks on them every 10 minutes. The staircase curls up to area O2.

The barrel holds glistening, greenish-black demon ichor. Morgantha can use the barrel as a font for a scrying spell. She can also knock on the barrel three times as an action to summon a dretch. The demon crawls out of the barrel at the end of Morgantha's turn and obeys the night hag's commands for 1 hour, after which it dissolves into a pool of ichor. Morgantha can summon up to nine dretches in this manner before the ichor is gone.

Morgantha's cabinet contains wooden bowls full of herbs and baking ingredients, including flour, sugar, and several gourds of powdered bone. Hanging on the inside of the cabinet doors are a dozen locks of hair. Amid various concoctions are three small, labeled containers that hold elixirs. The first elixir, labeled "Youth," is a golden syrup that magically makes the imbiber appear younger and more attractive for 24 hours. The second elixir, labeled "Laughter," is a nonmagical red tea that infects the imbiber with cackle fever (see "Diseases" in chapter 8, "Running the Game," of the Dungeon Master's Guide). The third elixir, a greenish milky liquid labeled "Mother's Milk," is actually a dose of pale tincture (see "Poisons" in chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master's Guide).

The chicken coop contains three chickens, a rooster, and a few laid eggs.

The wooden trunk has tiny holes bored into its lid and contains a hundred croaking toads. Several toads escape if the lid is lifted, but they are harmless.

O2. Bone Mill

Unless she has been lured elsewhere, Morgantha is encountered here. This is where she grinds children's bones to make the powder for her dream pastries.

The old woman is Morgantha, a night hag. She doesn't mind visitors, as long as they've come to do business. She tries to sell her latest batch of dream pastries, charging 1 gp for each one. She's proud of her confections and claims that she uses only the finest ingredients. If the characters seem uninterested in her wares, she bellows, "Begone!" If they attack or refuse to leave, she calls out to her daughters and turns to fight.

The hags operate the millstone manually, since the arms of the windmill no longer function.

O3. Bedroom

The night hags Bella Sunbane and Offalia Wormwiggle are here, unless they have been drawn elsewhere.

Morgantha's daughters are repulsive even in their human guises. When they are not singing, dancing, or telling terrible jokes to one another, they are pricking captured children with needles to make them cry. Any attempt to free the children incurs the hags' wrath.

The discarded clothing belongs to children whom the night hags have already devoured. The trapdoor in the ceiling can be pushed open to reveal area O4.

Each crate is 3 feet square. The top one is empty, but the middle and lower ones each contain a captive child. The outward-facing side of each crate is fitted with a small door that has an iron latch and iron hinges. It can be unlatched and opened easily from the outside.

The two captured children (LG male and female noncombatants) were taken from the village of Barovia after being given to the hags by their parents in exchange for dream pastries. The boy, Freek, is seven years old. The girl, Myrtle, is barely five. Their crates are full of crumbs, as the hags are fattening them up. If freed, neither child wants to go home, because of what their parents did. They both speak kindly of Ismark and Ireena in Barovia, hoping to be taken to them.

Treasure

The hags don't use the bed for sleeping, but they store their treasure in it. Six pieces of cheap jewelry (worth 25 gp each) are stuffed in the moldy straw mattress.

O4. Domed Attic

Characters searching this space find a few old, abandoned bird's nests.

Fortunes of Ravenloft

If your card reading reveals that a treasure is here, it's easy to find, either tucked in a bird's nest or buried under some dirt in a corner.

The Megaliths

The four ancient stones near the windmill were erected centuries ago by the valley's original human inhabitants. Each moss-covered stone bears a crude carving of a city, each of which is associated with a different season. The city of winter is shown covered with snow, the city of spring is arrayed in flowers, the city of summer has a sunburst overhead, and the city of autumn is covered with leaves. If the characters ask any of the priests or scholarly NPCs in Barovia about the stones, the characters are told that ancient legends tell of the Four Cities, said to be the cities of paradise where the Morninglord, Mother Night, and the other ancient gods first dwelled.

Several ravens circle overhead, and one pecks at something on top of the stone that depicts the city of autumn. Upon inspection, the characters see the raven is pecking at a dream pastry, and on the ground in the center of the stone circle is a small pile of children's teeth. The hags placed these here to desecrate the stones and as an offering to the entity they worship, the wicked archfey Ceithlenn of the Crooked Teeth.