MÈRE VARELLE NOCTHÉRA
YTHÉRA RUIN-HAG (NIGHT HAG VARIANT)
Medium Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 9d8+45 (85 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 23 (–1 Dex, +14 natural), touch 9, flat-footed 23
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+10
Attack: Claw +10 melee (1d8+4)
Full Attack: 2 claws +10 melee (1d8+4)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, ruin command, nightmare haunting, corrupt relic surge
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 10/cold iron and good, darkvision 60 ft., spell resistance 25, etherealness, ruin attunement, soul binding rod, dominion field
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +5, Will +10
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 8, Con 20, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 18
Skills: Bluff +16, Concentration +17, Diplomacy +8, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (arcana) +15, Knowledge (history) +15, Listen +14, Sense Motive +14, Spot +14
Feats: Ability Focus (nightmare haunting), Combat Casting, Great Fortitude, Iron Will
Environment: Ythéra Ruins
Organization: Solitary plus 4–6 ogres
Challenge Rating: 11 (base), 12–13 with ogres and terrain
Treasure: Double standard (includes Ythéran relics)
Alignment: Always neutral evil
Advancement: 10–15 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —
Languages: Common, Infernal, Abyssal, Cajun (regional dialect)
Special Attacks:
Spell-Like Abilities: At will - detect magic, magic missile, ray of enfeeblement, sleep; 3/day - deep slumber (DC 18), suggestion (DC 18), vampiric touch; 1/day - etherealness (self plus gear), contagion (DC 19). Caster level 9th. Save DCs are Charisma-based.
Nightmare Haunting (Su): As standard Night Hag ability, but DC 20 due to Ability Focus.
Ruin Command (Su): While holding the Rod of Ythéra, the hag may issue a command as a swift action affecting all ogres within 60 ft. Ogres must succeed on a DC 19 Will save or be dominated (as dominate monster) for 1 round. This is a compulsion effect. Ogres already under her long-term control automatically fail.
Corrupt Relic Surge (Su): As a standard action, the hag channels unstable Ythéran magic through a nearby relic or fragment (within 30 ft.). This produces one of the following effects (roll or choose):
1 - Burst of warped force: 20-ft. radius, 6d6 force damage (Ref DC 19 half)
2 - Grasping spectral hands: entangle effect + 2d6 negative energy damage
3 - Psychic backlash: enemies take –2 on attack rolls and saves for 3 rounds (Will DC 19 negates)
4 - Spatial distortion: terrain becomes difficult terrain and creatures must make Balance checks (DC 15) or fall prone
She may use this ability every 1d4 rounds.
Special Qualities:
Etherealness (Su): As standard Night Hag.
Ruin Attunement (Su): While within Ythéra Ruins, she gains fast healing 5 and a +2 bonus on caster level checks and save DCs of spell-like abilities.
Soul Binding Rod (Su): The Rod of Ythéra functions as her focus. If removed from her possession:
She loses Ruin Command
Ogres gain a new save every round to break free (DC 19)
She takes –2 penalty to all attack rolls and save DCs
If destroyed (hardness 10, hp 30), all bound ogres immediately become confused for 1d6 rounds.
Dominion Field (Su): The Rod of Ythéra establishes a persistent telepathic domination over creatures bound to it. The hag may control up to 2 Hit Dice of creatures per caster level (typically ogres) within a range of 1 mile per Hit Die (9 miles). This functions as dominate monster with no duration, but is limited to enforcing broad, standing commands such as labor, patrol, guarding, or retrieval. Creatures under this effect carry out assigned tasks with crude initiative. They receive a new Will save (DC 19) once per day; those that fail three consecutive saves become fully conditioned and no longer attempt to resist unless the rod is removed or destroyed. Orders that would result in immediate self-destruction allow an additional saving throw, though conditioned creatures take a –4 penalty on such saves.
DESCRIPTION:
Mère Varelle Nocthéra appears as a gaunt, corpse-pale woman stretched thin across angles that do not belong to mortal anatomy. Her limbs seem slightly too long, her fingers taper into blackened hooks that click softly against stone. Her eyes glow faintly with a bruised violet light, as though something ancient and offended peers out from behind them.
The Rod of Ythéra is a rusted iron length of pitted metal etched with spiraling glyphs that seem to shift when not directly observed. It emits a faint, unsettling hum.
The ogres she commands bear crude sigils burned into their flesh. Their movements are heavy, dulled, and obedient. The largest among them lingers closest, watching her with a disturbing mixture of devotion and fear.
LORE:
The ruins of the Ythéra are not merely remnants - they are residues. The civilization that birthed them collapsed inward, consumed by its own excesses in sorcery and sensation. What remains still echoes with the minds that shaped it.
Mère Varelle was once a wanderer among the planes, feeding on dreams and suffering. When she discovered the ruins, she found something rare - a legacy of cruelty that mirrored her own nature. Rather than conquer it, she settled into it, becoming part of its decay.
The Rod of Ythéra was once used to command laborers and altered beings in vast magical constructions. In her hands, it has become a crude but effective instrument of domination.
The ogres she commands were drawn by hunger, instinct, or greed. One by one they were broken and reshaped. The largest resisted the longest and now stands apart - a creature that mistakes cruelty for affection, and servitude for love.
Mère Varelle cultivates Bouchon’s devotion with deliberate, measured cruelty disguised as intimacy. At times she will draw him close, resting a hand against his massive frame or speaking to him in a low, softened voice, allowing him to believe - if only for a moment - that he is favored above the others. She rewards his obedience with proximity, with attention, with the illusion of recognition, and withdraws it just as easily to keep him desperate for its return. To Bouchon, these fleeting gestures are proof of something deeper, something mutual. To her, they are nothing more than tools - another means of control, no different from the Rod she carries. When the moment comes that his death would serve her purposes, she will spend him as readily as any other resource, without hesitation, regret, or even acknowledgment of what he believed himself to be.
~~~
OGRE – BOUCHON
Large GiantHit Dice: 8d8+40 (76 hp)
Initiative: –1
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 17 (–1 Dex, –1 size, +9 natural), touch 8, flat-footed 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+17
Attack: Greatclub +12 melee (2d8+10)
Full Attack: Greatclub +12 melee (2d8+10)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Powerful swing, protective fury
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, swamp stride, bound devotion
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +1, Will +4
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 8, Con 21, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7
Skills: Listen +5, Spot +5, Survival +3 (+5 in swamps)
Feats: Power Attack, Toughness, Cleave
Environment: Ythéra Ruins (bayou regions)
Organization: Solitary or with Mère Varelle Nocthéra and 2–5 ogres
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually chaotic evil (see bound devotion)
Advancement: 9–12 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —
Special Attacks:
Powerful Swing (Ex): Bouchon’s immense strength allows him to deliver crushing blows. As a full-round action, he may make a single attack at +14 to hit that deals 3d8+15 damage.
Protective Fury (Ex): If Mère Varelle Nocthéra is within 60 ft. and takes damage, Bouchon immediately gains +4 Strength, +2 morale bonus on Will saves, and –2 AC for 5 rounds (this does not stack with itself). While under this effect, he must move toward her attacker by the most direct route and attempt to engage them in melee.
Special Qualities:
Swamp Stride (Ex): Bouchon moves through bogs, shallow water, mud, and heavy undergrowth at normal speed without penalty and leaves no trail in such terrain unless he wishes to.
Bound Devotion (Su): Unlike other ogres under the Dominion Field, Bouchon’s attachment to Mère Varelle has become internalized. He does not take penalties on saves to resist self-destructive orders, and if freed from magical control, he does not become confused or hostile toward her. Instead, he remains loyal and protective by choice.
Additionally, if the Rod of Ythéra is destroyed or removed, Bouchon does not gain additional saving throws or break free in the same manner as other ogres. He immediately acts independently but continues to defend Mère Varelle and obey her spoken commands to the best of his understanding.
DESCRIPTION:
Bouchon is larger even than his already massive kin, standing close to ten feet tall with a broad, heavy frame that seems almost swollen with muscle and weight. His skin is a mottled dull brown with sickly yellow undertones, stretched tight across thick limbs and a distended torso. His movements are slower than the other ogres, but more deliberate, as though guided by something beyond instinct.
He wears crude furs and poorly cured hides draped unevenly across his body, darkened by constant exposure to swamp water and rot. Around his neck and shoulders hang scraps of scavenged objects - broken metal, bone fragments, and warped relics - collected without clear purpose.
His gaze rarely leaves Mère Varelle. When it does, it is only to identify threats to her, after which his attention snaps back with unsettling immediacy.
LORE:
Bouchon was among the first of the ogres drawn to the Ythéra Ruins, driven by hunger and the faint pull of something he could not understand. Unlike the others, he resisted Mère Varelle’s control for a time, enduring punishment that would have broken lesser creatures. That resistance did not grant him freedom. It changed him.
Where the others were reduced, Bouchon was reshaped. The Rod of Ythéra imposed obedience, but his prolonged exposure to its influence and to the hag herself created something more complex - a fixation that neither magic nor pain fully explains.
He interprets her cruelty as attention. Her commands as closeness. Her presence as something meant for him. In his mind, the distinction between control and affection has long since eroded.
When she speaks, he listens not for meaning, but for tone. When she looks at him, he stills. When she is threatened, he responds with sudden, overwhelming violence. There is no calculation in this - only certainty.
If the Rod were ever destroyed and the other ogres freed or driven mad, Bouchon would remain. Not because he must.
Because he chooses to.
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