Wild Witchs' Cottages

Wayward Mobile Homes Ready to be Renovated

Mar 17, 2023

Many ages ago there was a fashion among the better class of powerful hags to emulate the style of the great Baba Yaga and create their own version of her famous dancing hut. Many attempts were made by hags of all types and with mixed results but for a brief era there were numerous pretenders and posers trading on Baba Yaga's reputation.

Eventually the great hag grew annoyed by it. Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery but it can also severely water down your brand and so Baba Yaga made the executive decision to kill anyone she suspected of sullying her bad name with acts of weakness or worse, mercy (the blatant plagiarism hurt of course but it’s to be expected when you’re a witchcraft icon). So after a few hundred years and dozens of dead rivals the rest of the hag community got the point and gave up their pretensions.

But what of all the abandoned mobile homesteads cobbled together by these defeated arch hags? Some were of course destroyed in their final battles with the great witch but most were left unoccupied, wandering directionless off into the wilderness and across the planes. Those that still survive live in the wilderness and on the fringes of civilization.

Existing in the gray area between magic items and sentient constructs, the remaining cottages have varying levels of intelligence and personalities. Some have gone vicious and feral waiting like ambush predators to trap and consume unsuspecting weary travelers or thieves. Some have grown lonely and entice people into living inside them, going so far as to even lock their own doors and windows and run off with hapless occupants to the deep wilderness so that they have no choice but to shelter inside them.

Finding one of these cottages is a rare and fantastic occurrence for a group of wandering vagabonds and can be a great boon if you were to become its new masters. Of course you may have to deal with others who had the same idea…

Random Generator Tables

Below are tables that allow you to generate an abandoned hag dwelling of your own or simple to use as ideas to build one at your pleasure.

Personality and Intelligence -

Animal Intelligence: like a skittish dog that responds in kind to how it is treated
Alien: semi-sapient but unable to parse emotions and metaphor.
Simple: Eager to please and child-like, easily manipulated. Prone to childish fears.
Servile: Fawning and responsive to its master's wishes. Sometimes can be mistaken for sarcastic.
Willful: Stubborn and self-interested. A demanding, high maintenance home.
Steward: Eerily Intelligent, haughty, and fastidious. Sees its duty as a homestead as a matter of personal honor.
Slightly Mad: Unable to overcome the long trauma of abandonment. Its nightmares occasionally reshuffle the interior layout.l
Sagacious: long years of wandering have left the house with great insights and knowledge

Exterior -

Mud/Dung Hut
Woven Reed Hut
Sod House
Fortune Teller's Tent
Rickety Wooden Shack
Wattle and Daub Cottage
Rustic Log Cabin
Quaint Brick/Stone Cottage
Hunter's Lodge
Crooked Stone Tower
Shabby Inn
Ominous Bone Shack
Gingerbread House
Oversized Wine Cask/Tun
Giant Pumpkin
Carved Stone Head
Curio Shop
Mausoleum
Fancy Manor House
Small Stone Keep

Interior

Filthy Squalid Hovel
Damp Cavern System (mossy and misty with bubbling pools)
Ice Caverns (frost rimed stone corridors with icicles hanging from the ceilings and hearth warmed rooms lined with furs)
Well Kept Spinster’s House (severe and respectable, neat as a pin)
Grandmotherly (cluttered with comfy furnishings and nicknacks)
Hunting Lodge (gristly hunting trophies lining the walls)
Opulent Manor House
Stony Torchlit Catacomb (gloomy caverns that house the remains of the dead)
Trad-Witch Chic (bubbling cauldron, drying herbs and ingredients, the whole nine)
Torturer's Dungeon
Cathedral of a Dark God (vaulted ceilings, demonic imagery, sacrificial altar)
Grotesque Art Gallery
Doll Collectors Showcase (dolls and stuffed toys of varying degrees of “cuteness” line the walls)
Twisting Stone Maze
Coquettish Boudoir
Madman's Corridors (with twisting gravity defying staircases and ceilings, doors leading to nowhere, and windows that look out on alien landscapes)
Candy/Confection Shoppe
Haunted Castle (gothic architecture, cobwebs, the works)
Warlord's Fortress (barracks, weapon forging smithies, map rooms, and a "shield and armor" decor)
Can Adopt any of these styles on command

Locomotion

Long Stone Castors (Roll 30ft.)
Creaking Tree Trunks or Rumbling Stone Pillars (Walking 40ft.)
Giant Armored Knight’s Legs (Walking 40ft.)
Hundreds of Long Humanoid Arms (Walking 60ft.)
Red Fox Legs and Tail (Walking 100ft.)
4 Huge Skeletons Carry the House Like a Litter (Walking 60ft.)
Black Goat Legs (Walking 40ft./Climb 20ft.)
Monkey Arms and Legs (Walking 60ft./Climb 40ft.)
Duck Legs (Walking 40ft./Swim 40ft.)
Alligator Legs and Tail (Walking 40ft./Swim 60ft.)
Grotesque Horsefly Legs and Wings (Walking 40ft./Fly 40ft.)
Huge Bat Wings (Fly 60ft.)
Floating on a Roiling Fog Bank (Move 40ft.)
Gigantic Snail using the house as a shell (Move 30ft./Climb 30ft)
Massive Hairy Spider Legs (Walking 100ft./Climb 40ft.)
Mole Claws (Walking 20ft./Burrowing 40ft.)
Whirlwind (Fly 60ft)
Octopoid Tentacles (Walking 40ft./Swim 100ft.)
Peacock Legs, Wings, and Tail (Walking 40ft./Fly 100ft.)
Lightning Storm (long distance teleport, still takes time calculated at 200mph)

Communication -

Empathetic Waves - Can only communicate by broadcasting its emotions to occupants (fear, loneliness, hate, pleasure, ect)
Needlework Sampler - Communicates to occupants in pictures and words via a rapidly stitching and restitching cross stitch wall hanging
Magic Mirrors - Any exposed mirror within the structure becomes a conduit for face to face interaction. The reflection of the speaker takes on the personality and mannerisms of the house with only the eyes visually different from the real person. (Glowing, black pools, no eyes at all, pick something and be consistent with it)
Hidden Voice - Communicates by speaking aloud via a voice echoing from behind a door, under a staircase, or down a drainage pipe (or any suitably obscure or creepy area).
Ghostly Incarnation - A semitransparent spectral image manifests to communicate with occupants. Usually has one set form that is something on theme with the rest of the dwelling but can be anything.
Physical Incarnation - Can create a bodily presence within its walls usually with a set form that reflects its origin and outlook.

Taboos -

Will not travel by day
Will not allow a specific animal to enter
Will not come within 1000ft of a lawful church
Will not travel without a small animal sacrifice
Will not take orders from a man
Will not travel on the religious holidays of a particular deity
Only communicates in a specific language
Will not travel on a particular day of the week
Cannot use any powers while the hearth is not lit
Demands full time housekeeping servant

Environmental Effects -

Thick Fog
Always overcast
Deep Shadows
Withering and Twisting
Distinct Odor
Pestilent Miasma
Strange Stars
Maze of Illusion

Powers (Powers are only available to characters who have mastered or bonded with a witch house)

Camouflage - Can adapt it's exterior to blend in with surrounding local styles
Well Stocked - Can create up to 300 gp in mundane food, drink, or goods a week.
Healthful - Natural healing rates are doubly beneficial
All Weather - The temperature inside the house is always comfortable regardless of the extremes of heat or cold outside.
Helping Hands - The house is cleaned and items within maintained by invisible forces
Secretive - The house nor its inhabitants cannot be located via magical means
One Size Fits All - Creates new rooms and expands workshop areas as needed.
Woodland Wanderer - The house can stalk faultlessly through forests and swamps neither being hampered by the terrain or leaving any trace of its passage.
Incredible Shrinking House - can shrink down to the size of a housecat and back along with everything in it. Note I said everyTHING not everyONE.
Indestructible - The house cannot be damaged by any mortal means
Teleporter - Once per week the house can teleport to any place in the world without error.
Planar Portal - Once per month the house can create a hole in reality large enough to step through.

Leftovers - Sometimes the hags that used to occupy these strange structures leave behind a piece of potent mystical brick-a-brack or two all of them slightly unsavory to downright horrifying. Some samples include…

Typhoon Jug - Within five feet of this sturdy clay jug one can hear thunder, howling wind, and the downpour of torrential rain. A real typhoon was captured in this sealed jug centuries ago for a hag to use as a sleep aid, but woe betide anyone who unstoppers the vessel for the storm will rage out of control over a 60 mile radius for 1d4+2 days causing death and terrible devastation.

Shrunken Demon's Head - Even the demons are not safe from the wrath of a determined hag. This vile object upon command of its master will open its mouth and spew out a gout of choking green smoke that hampers visibility and causes pain to the wielder's enemies. (Fills a 30'x30' space. Enemies suffer -2 to attacks and cannot see past 5'). This effect functions but once per day for non-hags

Immortal Yardbird - This seemingly normal rooster is used for scrying purposes as each day it can be killed, eviscerated, and its guts used for prognosticatory ends. The poor beast then spontaneously resurrects 1d3 hours later fully intact and ready to be mangled again.

Bone Needles - These large needles are crudely carved from bones of unknown creatures and have bundled strings of sinew threaded through their eyes. They rest stabbed into a raw still beating heart under a bell jar. Though grotesque they are potent items of healing able to reattached severed extremities (even heads) and restore them to full normal function (though if they were rotting or mangled they maintain scars or slight discoloration)

Fairy Skull Earrings - Usually coming in sets of 3, these monstrous items consist of the skulls of murdered sprites that have been etched with golden runes and hung from a silver hook. Designed so a hag covey can keep in contact with her sisters the wearer of these items has but to grasp the skull earring and they will be able to speak to the wearer of the other linked earrings over a distance of 101 miles.

Black Iron Dentures - These dully glistening dental prosthetics have teeth fashioned to come to small points and look to be made of well seasoned cast iron. They are uncomfortably warm to the touch. Putting the dentures in painfully destroys any remaining teeth the wearer may have (dealing 2d4 damage) and binds the Black Iron Dentures in place. Those fitted with the dentures gain a bite attack that deals 1d4 (piercing & bludgeoning) and 1d6 fire as the teeth glow red hot. Additionally the wearer can chew through anything softer than iron as if it were soft bread (this includes wood, stone, and other less dense metals)

Witches Wardrobe - This dark burnished wardrobe is padlocked with the key hanging on a nearby hook. Once opened you find on one side numerous sets of clothing of varying styles for men and women. On the other side are 1d3+1 degloved full human and elf skins draped over hangers. Each skin is clean and warm to the touch with a slit up the back and a carved bone button at the nape of the neck. A creature of any size may climb into a skin and take on the physical guise of the poor soul who was skinned to create them (they may later take the skin off by unfastening the button at the nape of the neck). The skins are still somewhat alive and they shudder and twitch on their hangers and will attempt to slither out and sneak away unless the wardrobe is firmly locked when not in use.

Pestilent Poisons - Witches love to poison things if fairey stories are to be believed and sometimes you’ll stumble across one that didn’t care that they were perpetuating an ugly stereotype. At any rate here are some of the cursed concoctions that you may come across.

Verminous Sweet - this tasty additive is usually dripped onto candy or confections giving them an irresistible aroma. When consumed the poisoned treat transforms the victim into a mouse (though they retain their mind and power of speech)
Eternal Slumber - a thin black liquid used in minor injurious traps (spindle of a spinning wheel or a thumbtack on a chair). When the victim is pricked they fall into an unwakeable sleep that has the side effect of slowing down their aging and metabolism to an almost complete stop.
Blight Slime - a small vial of dull brown slime that when poured on vegetation aggressively coats and kills everything growing in a rapidly expanding area. The slime is mildly psychic in nature and will stop at a recognized property line or enclosure. If splashed on a plant creature it will deal 1d6 damage per combat round for 1 minute unless washed off by a skin of vinegar or wine.
Withering Powder - a blast of this choking gray powder will steal the youth from its victim, rapidly aging them to an old and feeble state. This effect will wear off in 1d3 years if left untreated. However the GM should roll 1d4 to determine how many years they have left to live in their current condition.

Other Considerations -

These wondrous witches' cottages can make overland travel both faster and safer for players but make sure you plug in difficulties in both acquiring one and restrictions in using them to balance them out and keep things lively. Also having an obvious and powerful artifact under their control should make them targets of the envious and unscrupulous.

As to the homes themselves I conceive them as objects that can hide their natures after long years of getting by on their own. So I would give them the power to absorb their strange locomotive limbs or bury them in the earth or however you think would be cool.

Finally thank you for having a look at my mental mobile home lot and I hope you can use it to add some fun and wonder to your game. :)

Terance’s Substack

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