Jezibaba
Jezibaba is an archfey of the Winter Court, the second-in-command to the Queen of the Night. She is one of the most immensely powerful archfey, able to cause massive storms and grant wishes to desperate creatures (for a price). She is also one of the archfey most known for meddling in the affairs of mortals.
Legends
In Scalados she is known as the Váyathusa or the Storm Hag. She attacks the ships of unsuspecting sailors with a destructive storm called a Hagstorm. Before she attacks a ship, the Storm Hag sings an eerie song, in what sounds like dozens of beautiful voices. The song foretells the doom of the sailors on board before the storm wreaks havoc upon their ship. The only way a doomed sailor could reclaim their lives from her was to give up their voice for her dread choir. They are allowed to return to land, mute but alive; however, alongside their voice, Jezibaba collects their soul. They die within seven years and are doomed to serve her as twisted, undead versions of themselves. In the Western Woods, she appears as Yezinka the Dream-Witch. She often wears a kindlier disguise in these woods, that of a round-faced Human or Orokhim grandmother in traditional clothing. She senses lost travelers and fashions a house out of their hopes and dreams, then kindly invites them in for a hot meal and a warm bed. Once a traveler accepts her hospitality, though, they are in her debt. If they cannot offer her satisfactory payment, she devours their memories and releases them back into the woods unaware of who they are or where they intended to go. She is known in the Near Isles as the Queen of Hags, whose power fuels all Hag covens. A more recent legend from the Near Isles concerning Jezibaba is the story of Stépan Murgatroyd. Locals say that Stépan, the son of margrave Ruthven Murgatroyd, fell in love with a mysterious mute Half-Elf woman and intended to marry her. When he called off their engagement on the day before their wedding, she ran off into the swamps and lured him after her. His corpse washed up on the shores of the island the next morning with a stab-wound through his heart. Some believe that the mute woman was a Nymph (a rusalka) that Jezibaba had somehow disguised or transformed as a mortal; they point to her lack of a voice as a telltale sign of one of Jezibaba's cruel deals.Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Jezibaba typically appears as an old crone with wizened, hideous features and greenish skin, nails, and teeth. Her hair is always gray and typically extremely knotted or unkempt, often with branches and even spiderwebs stuck in it.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Jezibaba is drawn to desperation, lost dreams, and fading hopes. She enjoys drawing the goodness and agency out of mortals and leaving them empty, hollow, and lost.
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