Characteristics
Physical features
She has a grotesque, toad-like appearance, with bulbous eyes, cracked skin, and a mouth that often hangs agape. Her jaw can open to eerily unnatural proportions, allowing her to swallow creatures whole. She speaks in a deep, raspy voice that sounds like the croak of a toad.
Mental traits
Bavlorna lives the life of a hermit, perfectly content to stay within her cottage in the material plane, safe from the outside world. She is easily agitated, paranoid of outsiders, and obsessive over the "treasures" she has accumulated within her home. Bavlorna cares little for memories of the past or possible future outcomes, only mustering enough energy to live from moment to moment.
Oddly enough, she has uncontrollable sneezing fits whenever she sees someone run counterclockwise.
Abilities
Despite their shared enmity, the crones each gained significant powers when all three were within close proximity of one another.
Of the members of her coven, Bavlorna is the hag of the present and current existence. She can provide boons to others who are plagued with ongoing, anxiety-inducing problems. She is entirely protected from the harmful effects of aging and can never die as a result of advanced age.
The toad-like hag is amphibious in nature and can breathe both air and water. She also has the power to create a weird variety of quicklings known as lornlings, which resemble miniature versions of herself.
She is afflicted with something of a strange curse: Bavlorna has an allergy to widdershins. If she sees another creature run in place anticlockwise, she is overcome by a fit of sneezing, which affects her ability to cast spells for a short time. During this fit, she is also unable to keep any creature recently swallowed within herself.
Combat
When she feels threatened, Bavlorna can turn foes away with a withering ray of necrotic energy. At times, she even bites at her enemies and can swallow them whole in a single chomp. They then slowly digest within the acids of her stomach.
Bavlorna has limited access to arcane magic but can freely detect magic at will.
Relationship
Bavlorna despises her two biological sisters, the elder Skabatha Nightshade and younger Endelyn Moongrave. She holds an especially strong disdain for Skabatha and seeks to recover the tapistry of her childhood memories that remains within skabatha orphanage in
Vecna's Domain of Dread.
Activities
She almost never leaves the decrepit cottage she calls home. Within her hut is a mysterious pool that helps preserve her physical form and prevents it from entering a state of rictus.
On the rare occasions she decides to move, a giant lily pad forms under her cottage, transporting it.
Possessions
Among her possessions is a book entitled The Big Book of Bad Blood, within which she details the many grievances she perceives were directed toward her, as well as two humanoid-shaped pincushions that resemble her sisters.
Bavlorna hoards mundane and useless items. She has an entire cupboard full of odd mementos, including unsent love letters, dried-and-pressed flowers, loose buttons, and a collection of bird feathers. The "treasure hoard" kept within her bedroom holds similar junk items, including a stag's skull and a wooden mannequin (wearing a helm of telepathy).
She does, however, possess a giant bronze statue depicting a frog that holds within it a massive extradimensional space.
Lair
Most of the time, Bavlorna communicates through an enchanted tapestry.
Wealth
History
Crones
Isolated in the Murkendraw swamps, the crones are old creatures, it is believed that the three sisters have existed since the reign of the first Fey Kings. The crones are such creatures. No one knows what breed of monstrosity they, in fact, are. People believe them to be primal hags. Folk say they were four at first. The Mother, the Lady of the Wood, suffered terribly from loneliness, she made daughters out of dirt and water.
They were the first daughters of the Lady of the Wood, a fearsome archfey and the supposed mother of all witches. Each sister became bound to an aspect of time—past, present, and future.
A long, long Time ago the Mother was sole ruler of the spring court. Her daughters brought her the people's requests and served as her voice. Each spring, sacrifices of grain, animals, and men were made to the Lady of the Wood on her special night.
Their mother later adopted a dragon named Tasmiira, raising her as her own. As Tasmiira matured, so did her power, and the Crones grew resentful. Their jealousy only deepened when the Lady of the Wood chose Tasmiira as her successor, granting her the title of Archfey of the Spring Court.
Feigning loyalty, the sisters embraced their new sibling, hiding their envy behind honeyed words and false smiles while secretly plotting her downfall. They waited for the perfect moment to strike.
When Tasmiira returned from her travels, their trap was sprung—the sisters sealed her in temporal stasis, freezing her in time.
With Tasmiira helpless, the Crones began carving out their own domain within the Spring Court. However, their mother refused to stand by idly and attempted to free her chosen heir. Declaring their mother mad, the sisters destroyed her body and imprisoned her soul into a bog, claiming it was the only way to "save" the court. Their mother blood and soul transformed the land forever, spawning the Murkendraw swamps.
The sisters, now rulers of the Spring Court, established their palace deep within the Murkendraw Swamps, guarding it fiercely while keeping Tasmiira locked in temporal stasis. Though they sometimes offer aid to desperate locals, their help always comes at a price.
Their ambition spread over the land—elves took to abandoning their homes and setting out into the bog, where they became food for beasts. Before long, the land was drowning in blood.
Endelyn Moongrave, the eldest, demands payment in the form of severed ears, which she strings across the swamps, using them as listening posts to hear every whispered secret. The people, fearful yet resigned, offer children as sacrifices, sending them into the swamp knowing they will never return—devoured by the Crones.
As their influence stretched beyond the Spring Court’s borders, the Summer Court took notice. Unwilling to let their corruption spread further, the Summer Fey launched an assault on the Murkendraw, igniting a brutal war against the Crones.
The war
The Summer Court, under the rule of King Dasmag, a Satyr Lord, was worried about the ever growing influence of the Murkendraw, a swamp belonging to the Crones, archfey of the spring court.
Driven by his determination to reclaim the Murkendraw from the clutches of the Crone, King Dasmag led an army to the crones. The first army sent to reclaim the Murkendraw consisted mainly of elves. Deceived by the cunning crones, they were banished to the moon Lúg emel (Kurt's Heart), becoming the moon elves.
The goblins offered their aid to King Dasmag after this incident in exchange for newfound powers. However, when they thought themselves unobserved, they callously reneged on their agreement, foolishly believing they could escape the consequences. Fate took a twisted turn when the battle shifted, pitting the goblins against the hags alone. Seizing the opportunity, the cunning hags offered a tantalizing proposition, fully aware that the goblins' betrayal would invoke a curse, effectively severing their ties with the summer court. Tempted by the hags' promises, the goblins succumbed to their deceit. As a result, they find themselves cursed and many were banished from the fey realm, forced to dwell once again in the material plane.
King Dasmag's army was annihilated in their bold endeavor.
Aftermath
The crones divided, and they decided to go their separate ways. With their power weakened, Tismara was able to get free from the temporal stasis, getting back the leadership of the spring court and the archfey title. Edelyn who stayed in the swamp kept rulership over it and neither the spring court nor the summer court tried to contest it.
Skabatha and Bavlorna left the feywild, leaving Endelyn as the sole ruler of the murkendraw swamps, in which she truned the crones' cottage into a strange theatre.
Unwanted child
Bavlorna make a deal with the local baron’s wife, Anna Strenger, who is pregnant but does not wish to have another child with her abusive husband, Phillip Strenger. The witches agree to give the woman a miscarriage in exchange for one year’s worth of servitude. However, the Crones' pact is ever deceitful—while the fetus would die, it would also secretly sap Anna of her strength and kill her as well.
Anna, figuring this out, manages to circumvent this with the help of the local acolyte. However, not to be outsmarted, the Bavlorna is able to snatch Anna when she and her teenage daughter, Tamara, try to escape from Philip one night. She then put Anna’s pact to use.
Family tree
Comments
Author's Notes
Inspired by the hourglass coven from the wild beyond the witchlight (forgotten realms) and by the crones from the witcher.