Night Hags and Dream Pastries

Player-known lore on the night-hag coven at Old Bonegrinder Windmill and their dream-pastry trade. Speculation labeled Party believes… / Unconfirmed:. The coven was defeated on the 9th of Neyavr (Sessions 20–21); the looted Heartstone was used that same night to complete Rescue Stella Wachter (Session 22).

The Coven at Old Bonegrinder Windmill

• Site: dilapidated Old Bonegrinder Windmill on a west fork off the road approaching Vallaki (~two hours from town) (Session 8 @ 01:14:46; Session 19 @ 01:11:55)
• DM module name: Old Bone Grinder (Session 20 @ 04:04:42)
• Morgantha claimed she lived there with daughters Bella and Offalia; not keen on leaving (Session 8 @ 01:19:48, 01:24:26)
• Ground floor: filthy makeshift kitchen, peddler's cart, chicken coop, stench from open barrel, brick oven, crumbling stairs (Session 20 @ 01:36:47)
• 2nd floor: millstone with locked compartment holding the Coven Contract (Session 20 @ 01:45:24, 02:02:24)
• 3rd floor: gearshaft chamber; locked crate held captive children (Session 20 @ 01:49:08; Session 21 @ 00:20:49)

First Encounter — Road to Vallaki (Session 8)

On the morning approach to Vallaki, the party met Morgantha at her pastry cart near the windmill fork:

• Old woman with heavy cart; daughters named Bella and Offalia (Session 8 @ 01:20:02)
• Sells "dream pastries" in Vallaki mornings and evenings; claimed "poor hungry deers" outside town eagerly buy them (Session 8 @ 01:20:18, 01:20:46)
• Had just peddled to refugee camp outside Vallaki (Session 8 @ 01:19:27)
• Gave Sildir a free sample wrapped in a handkerchief (Session 8 @ 01:23:09)
• Pastry: savory meat pie with filling spilling out (Session 8 @ 01:35:27)
• Party deferred entering the windmill; Morgantha returned up the road to the mill (Session 8 @ 01:25:25)

Enchanted sample

• Irredel Arcana 16: appears ordinary; magic hard to detect (Session 8 @ 01:32:24)
• Ritual Detect Magic (~10 min): enchantment magic on the pastry (Session 8 @ 01:33:57)
• Sildir buried the sample rather than risk wildlife eating it (Session 8 @ 01:36:11)
• Party suspected witchcraft but took no action yet (Session 8 @ 01:37:21)
• Unconfirmed: Mercurio wondered if Morgantha's cart strength matched werewolf resilience from van Richten manuscript (Session 8 @ 01:31:11)

Party timing suspicion

• Encounter was early morning; Morgantha said she was returning from selling in town — party found the schedule implausible (hours there, sell, hours back) (Session 8 @ 01:29:45; Session 15 @ 01:37:15)

Dream Pastries — Effects & Warnings

What the party learned about pastry magic

• Party distinguished pastry enchantment from the conjuration magic affecting Ember and Saturno (Session 15 @ 01:38:38)

At the windmill (Session 20)

• Morgantha offered bulk dream-pastry catering order as infiltration cover (Session 20 @ 01:35:29)
• Ground-floor barrel: "secret ingredients" — stench mixing with pastry smell (Session 20 @ 01:37:54)
• Mid-fight: Morgantha admitted pastries use human stock; forced cannibalism (Session 20 @ 03:24:48)
• Mercurio inferred from human-flesh contract that children upstairs faced worse than bullying (Session 20 @ 02:13:37)
• Party refused to sign hag deals — feared letter-of-law traps (Session 20 @ 02:13:37, 03:31:13)

Ember & Saturno's Trance (Unconfirmed Link)

Same day as the Morgantha encounter (Session 8):

• Ember and Saturno would not wake after long rest — fitful trance, sweating, breathing but unresponsive (Session 8 @ 00:45:33)
• Party carried them on a sled toward Vallaki (Session 8 @ 00:50:49)
• Irredel detected magic on them: conjuration or abjuration — not enchantment (Session 8 @ 01:41:47)
• Mercurio noted this did not match his enchantment theory for the pastry (Session 8 @ 01:42:35)
• Unconfirmed: link between dream pastries and the trance (Session 8 @ 01:38:34)

Session 15 — Saturno told Father Bryce both shared a conjuration vision: a young translucent woman protecting them from a shadowy malicious spirit; no facial features remembered (Session 15 @ 01:29:55, 01:31:19). Father Bryce ruled out werewolves, Strahd, and Tulahan as cause; urged caution about strange deals (Session 15 @ 01:33:14, 01:35:15). Party believes some other force caused the trance — not Morgantha's enchanted pies directly.

Night Hag Nature & Capabilities

Identification (Session 19)

Victor Vallakovich needed a night-hag Heartstone to anchor Stella Wachter's soul back from the ethereal plane (Session 19 @ 01:11:40). See Stella & the Hag Connection below for how Victor and the party pieced this together.

Stella's observations (via Victor)

• Stella Wachter has seen a dark creature near the old windmill — matches night hag description (Session 19 @ 01:11:55, 01:12:28)
• Stella has not eaten hag pastries; noticed hag selling treats to passersby (Session 19 @ 01:12:28)
• Stella: soul separating from body if too long on ethereal plane; father not the danger (Session 19 @ 01:15:09)

Stella Wachter & the Hag Connection

What happened to Stella Wachter was not fully confirmed — the party pieced together parts over time.

Victor's initial understanding

Before the party delivered Mordenkainen's tome, Victor Vallakovich attributed Stella's plight purely to his own failed magic:

• Three months ago, news that Strahd had risen prompted an escape attempt via teleportation circle (Session 19 @ 01:18:50)
• Spell went wrong; Stella pushed Victor aside — her soul went to the ethereal plane, body left an empty shell (Session 19 @ 01:18:50)
• Victor had been working to bring her back; assigned party to retrieve Ethereal Entities Vol. 2 from Khazan's Wizard Tower for the return ritual (Session 12 @ 01:39:42; Session 19 @ 01:03:29)
• At this stage Victor did not know night hags were involved (Session 19 @ 01:18:50)

What the Mordenkainen book changed

Party recovered Ethereal Entities, Denizens of the Unseen Realm, Volume 2 at Khazan's Wizard Tower (Session 13 @ 03:13:46), held it for review (Session 14 @ 02:28:48), and gave it to Victor in the attic workroom on the 9th of Neyavr (Session 19 @ 01:04:36).

• Victor rifled to a passage on night hags; Mercurio read over his shoulder (Session 19 @ 01:05:24)
• After finishing that reading, Victor concluded he needed a heartstone from a night hag — an additional component beyond the spell in the book (Session 19 @ 01:10:24, 01:11:40)
• Victor then connected Stella's sighting of a dark creature at the windmill to a night hag occupying Old Bonegrinder Windmill (Session 19 @ 01:12:28)
• When Mercurio asked whether Stella made a deal with the hags, Victor still explained the trap as the failed teleportation — not hag-caused (Session 19 @ 01:18:50)

Party speculation

• Party believes (told Lady Fiona Wachter en route to windmill): Stella was cursed by a hag and killing the hag would help save her (Session 20 @ 00:48:44)
• This framing may conflate the heartstone component with causation — Victor's account still centers the failed teleport (Session 19 @ 01:18:50)
• Unconfirmed: whether night hags caused, worsened, or merely neighbored Stella's ethereal trap; full exact truth unknown

Resolution

• Coven defeated; Heartstone looted and delivered to Victor (Sessions 20–21)
• Midnight full-moon ritual succeeded — Stella's soul returned, briefly animated, then collapsed unconscious (Session 22 @ 01:12:00)

Coven Contract & Plane Binding

Lady Fiona Wachter joined the windmill assault to save Stella Wachter (Session 20 @ 00:50:32).

Contract

• Night-hag coven contract — Abyssal script on human-flesh parchment (Session 20 @ 02:02:24)
• Ember/Saturno stole it from millstone compartment during infiltration (Session 20 @ 02:02:24)
• Party could not read Abyssal; Fiona could (Session 20 @ 02:02:24)
• True names read: Morgantha storm reaver, belladonna sunbeam, Offalia worm wiggle (Session 20 @ 02:03:37)

Binding ritual

• Fiona intel: contract + true names enable ~10-minute plane-binding spell; hags will know when bound (Session 20 @ 01:04:28, 02:03:37)
• Fiona must hang back — hags see through her (Session 20 @ 01:04:28)
• Majesto (Fiona's imp familiar) relayed ritual completion to party (Session 20 @ 02:53:31)
• Binding succeeded — coven could not flee to ethereal plane (Session 20 @ 02:03:37)

Windmill Assault — 9th of Neyavr (Session 20)

Infiltration

• Sildir deception 16: festival postponed; bulk catering order at windmill (Session 20 @ 01:35:23)
• 3rd floor: daughters singing/taunting; child whimpering heard (Session 20 @ 01:58:50)
• Saturno heard them torturing a child and laughing (Session 20 @ 03:32:49)
• Pastries in oven still raw when combat began (Session 20 @ 02:17:24)

Combat & refused bargain

• Mid-fight Morgantha offered heartstone loan plus three secrets about Strahd von Zarovich for their lives (Session 20 @ 03:27:01)
• Admitted two children upstairs; pastries use human stock (Session 20 @ 03:24:48)
• Party debated hearing secrets first — feared hag contracts would bind them from killing afterward (Session 20 @ 03:31:13)
• Party refused and killed Morgantha, Bella, and Offalia (Session 20 @ 04:04:42)
• Mercurio Celestial Revelation inner radiance — radiant damage woke sleep-affected allies and finished Morgantha at 9 HP (Session 20 @ 04:02:42, 04:04:42)

Aftermath (Sessions 21–22)

Loot & rescue

• Heartstone: mottled green, slimy, faint glow, pulsing — in Morgantha's neck pouch; Sildir Investigation 13 (Session 21 @ 00:15:23)
• Rescued Fyodor (boy) and Myrtle (girl) from locked crate on 3rd floor — Barovia Village refugees; parents fled to Vallaki; starved/grimy but not seriously injured (Session 21 @ 00:20:49, 00:23:04)
• Ireena Kolyana took children to Blue Water Inn for food and parent reunion (Session 21 @ 01:13:15)

Heartstone handoff & Stella ritual

• Sylalys carried stone; Lady Fiona Wachter briefly examined it; Sildir intimidation 24 secured it back (Session 21 @ 01:06:34)
• Delivered to Victor Vallakovich ~7 p.m. — midnight full-moon ritual; planes closest (Session 21 @ 01:35:09, 01:39:02)
• Victor: further reading from Ethereal Entities Vol. 2 informed ritual prep (Session 21 @ 01:35:09)
• Session 22 midnight: Saturno anchored heartstone in salt circle (Strength 18 with Mercurio's Enhance Ability); Fiona assisted ethereal anchoring; Stella Wachter's soul returned — briefly animated, then collapsed unconscious (Session 22 @ 01:12:00)

Missing refugee children

• Unconfirmed: Lady Fiona Wachter heard refugee-camp children missing — suspected hag link (Session 20 @ 01:24:05)
• Linked to Investigate Vallaki Disappearances alongside Court of Wolves / Izek threads; hag coven defeated and Fyodor/Myrtle rescued (Session 21 @ 00:20:49)

Megaliths Near the Windmill

~100 feet from the windmill after the fight (Session 21 @ 00:42:44):

• Circular stone slab, four pillars; raven over three-pointed star carving (matches road megalith from Session 8) (Session 21 @ 00:32:42)
• Mercurio alone heard frenetic terrifying melody masking a calmer tune (Session 21 @ 00:33:58)
• Arcana 19: old folk magic masked by darker curse — site deconsecrated (Session 21 @ 00:37:13)
• Identify ritual: whispered "corruption" (Session 21 @ 00:39:19)
• Ravens avoided windmill area (Session 21 @ 00:42:44)
• Party planned return with Dispel Magic — not yet done (Session 21 @ 00:38:24)

See The Ladies Three and the First Folk for valley-wide megalith context.

Morgantha's Withheld Strahd Secrets

• Offered three secrets about Strahd von Zarovich "you won't get anywhere else" for the coven's lives (Session 20 @ 03:24:48, 03:27:01)
• Party refused the bargain; secrets remain unknown (Session 20 @ 03:32:49)
• Listed in Strahd von Zarovich — Party Knowledge as open thread

Open Threads

• Three Strahd secrets — never learned (Session 20 @ 03:27:01)
• Stella's full story — failed teleport confirmed; hag involvement partially pieced together; exact truth unconfirmed (Session 19 @ 01:18:50; Session 20 @ 00:48:44)
• Windmill megalith "corruption" — Dispel Magic not yet attempted (Session 21 @ 00:38:24)
• Unconfirmed: full scope of dream-pastry victims in Vallaki beyond churchgoer reports
• Unconfirmed: whether Ember/Saturno trance was related to hags at all (Session 8 @ 01:38:34)
• Unconfirmed: Fyodor/Myrtle parent reunion outcome (Session 21 @ 01:13:15)