About:
Preliminary Notes

Before we go any farther, I would highly recommend that you trick your players into trying the Dream Pastries. They'll be positively mortified to learn that they've eaten children and that just fits so well into this campaign. I did a nice write up on tricking the party with Morgantha in my Village of Barovia post, if you're interested. I also have a post on the mechanics of Dream Pastry Addiction.

What's Supposed to Happen at Old Bonegrinder

The creators of this chapter meant for this to be a warning for your PCs about the dangers of Barovia. Your players are supposed to walk up, see the hags, fight the hags, find out they're severely outmatched, and then make a run for it. They even put a convenient raven outside the front door to warn the PCs that this is a bad place to be.

The problem is, most players go into d&d with a pretty hardcore hero complex. What's more, if they find out children are involved, that hero complex gets cranked up to eleven. Suddenly, you've got a TPK on your hands as your players valiantly refuse to abandon the kids and leave such foul hags alive. I've come up with some ways to circumvent this almost completely inevitable outcome.

Fighting the Hags

If you want to play this as an encounter, there are a few different ways for you to even the playing field.

Turning A Fight into Role-Play

Let's say you want to avoid the fight entirely and make this a nice role-play opportunity instead. I'll warn you that this next section is me shooting from the hip. I've only recently thought of this scenario and so never got the chance to test it in my game. But I think it's an interesting enough idea to do a write-up on it.

Conversations inside the Windmill

The Unanswered Letter

Somewhere along the line, Bella should be able to tell that the PCs have experience in battle. They're obvious adventurers and they've been fooled by Bella thus far. She sees an opportunity to use the PCs and she's going to take it.

Vasili, My Dear Friend,

Yes, of course I would be more than willing to help you with such a horrible problem! I can only imagine what those poor dears in Vallaki are going through. You know very well that I've had my own bad encounters with witches... encounters that have left their marks on my very soul. Children, orphaned or not, should never have to face such evil.

If you find a way to get the little ones at Andral's Orphanage safely out of Vallaki, I'll be happy to house them in my windmill. There's not much room, here, true. But we have beds and pies to go around.

Sincerely,

Morgantha

The Witches' Evil Plan

Believe it or not, the hags actually have multiple copies of this letter that they keep on standby. The three of them are quite old (hags live longer than humans), and they've had brave adventurers come by their windmill before over the decades. Most of the time, these visits turn into fights. The adventurers end up dead or run for the lives. But every so often, the hags are able to fool adventurers into thinking that they're nothing but nice old ladies and they use the letter to trick the adventurers into helping them.

What does the coven at Old Bonegrinder want? Children, of course. They need supplies for their pies and a way to expand their influence further into Barovia, preferably to Vallaki since it's the biggest town. The hags are looking for a way to expand their consumer base and adventurers are a great way to get that done. They want the PCs to go check out the orphanage in Vallaki and hopefully bring them some kids for their pies. Even the mention of Vasili, Strahd's alter ego, is just a running joke in the coven.

Fight Warning

Let's be honest, no matter how you play it, this is still a pretty precarious role-play situation. All it takes is for your PCs to snoop a little too much and get some wicked perception and/or insight checks to know that something is up. If they get even a whiff of danger, their defenses will go up and they'll feel the need to figure it all out.

There's a high chance that at any moment this conversation will devolve into a fight. If that happens, refer to the first section of this post on how to run that encounter like a forgiving DM who doesn't want to absolutely obliterate a party of level 3 babes.

If Things Go Well

On the other hand, maybe your party is totally fooled. After all, a bunch of abused orphans can sound pretty stereotypically plausible in a campaign like this.

If the party happily agrees to help Bella, she sends them on their way saying that, "Mother won't like it if she sees you here. She doesn't like strangers seeing our mess, you see." And then the PCs are off to Vallaki with a side quest in tow.

I'll be writing a mini-adventure for the orphanage in Vallaki as an extension of this post. Because hey, it's not like Vallaki has anything going on, right? It'd be boring without yet another side quest. ;p

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Those are my notes on Old Bonegrinder. As always, I hope you enjoyed are are excited for more!

APPROACHING THE WINDMILL

01. GROUND FLOOR (ENCOUNTER: DRETCH)

02. BONE MILL (ENCOUNTER: MORGANTHA)

03. BEDROOM (ENCOUNTER: NIGHT HAGS, CAPTURED CHILDREN)

04. DOMED ATTIC (FORTUNES OF RAVENLOFT)

You've reached the windmill's peak-a domed chamber filled with…

Characters searching this space find …

FORTUNES OF RAVENLOFT

If your card reading reveals that a treasure is here, it's…

Morgantha's Coven

[

](https://alberons-mistake.fandom.com/wiki/Morgantha's_Coven#articleComments)EDIT

Morgantha's Coven is a group of Barovian hags previously located at the Old Bonegrinder windmill, halfway between Vallaki and the town of Barovia.

The coven, consisting of Morgantha]] the Elder" target="_blank" class="external-link">Morgantha the Elder and her daughters Bella and Ofalia make dreamcakes from the bones of children. These dreamcakes are highly addictive, causing pleasant dreams of sunlight when consumed, and horrifying nightmares when one stops eating them. The hags charge their customers increasingly high prices, and, when the customers can no longer afford the dreamcakes, demand children as payments.

The Keepers of the Feather were aware of the hags' activities, but had so far been unable to stop them. Wereraven siblings Dagmara and Fyodor Martikov were keeping a watch on Old Bonegrinder when Morgantha and Ofalia were both killed by the adventurers Lilluth, Fate, Stellaluna, and Solaris, and the siblings Myrtle and Ifrik were rescued from the windmill. Bella was taken captive, but managed to escape.

After defeating the hags, the adventurers found a mirror that could be used to communicate with Baba Lysaga and a mysterious magical siphon among the hags' possessions. Lilluth had a vision after the defeat of the coven in which Shandrian told her that one of the two favors that Lilluth owed had been paid.

CHAPTER 6: OLD BONEGRINDER
Once a grain mill that served Vallaki, this slouching windmill is now home to three night hags: Morgantha and her
wretched daughters, Bella Sunbane and Offalia Wormwiggle. The hags are trapped in Barovia, but they like it here. Using their Change Shape action to look like Barovian women-a frumpy mother and her two homely daughters-the hags snatch children, devour them, and use the windmill's grindstone to crush their little bones into powder. This powder is a key ingredient in the hags' dream pastries, which they offer to Barovian adults who are desperate to escape Strahd's domain. Made with the bones of the innocent, the hags' dream pastries allow Barovians to enter a trance, wherein they can escape to heavenly places full of joy. When adults can no longer afford the hag's dream pastries, the hags offer to trade their pastries for the Barovians' children, thus preying on the adults' selfishness while acquiring the ingredients they need to make more pastries. This is how the hags sow corruption in Strahd's domain and why they don't take the children by force. The hags are interested only in children who have souls. They prick each child with a needle; if the child cries, that's a sign that the infant has a soul.

Morgantha'S COVEN
The hags possess the shared spellcasting abilities of a coven (see the "Hag Covens" sidebar in the hags entry
in the Monster Manual). If one or more hags die, the coven is broken. Morgantha tolerates her daughters only because they help her complete the coven. If one of them dies, Morgantha sets out to abduct and consume a human child so that she can give birth to a new daughter (as described in the Monster Manual).
Morgantha gave her coven's hag eye to Cyrus Belview, Strahd's disfigured manservant (see chapter 4, area K62), so that she could spy on Castle Ravenloft and keep an eye on the vampire. The hags are fearful of Strahd and respect his dominion over this land. For more information on the hag eye, see the hags entry in the Monster
Manual.

DREAMS ARE FOR THE LMNG.
-Strahd von Zarovich

DREAM PASTRIES
These pastries look and taste like small mincemeat pies. A creature that eats one in its entirety must succeed
on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or fall into a trance that lasts for ld4 + 4 hours, during which time the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of O feet. The trance ends if the affected creature takes any damage
or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor.
While in the trance, the creature dreams of being in some joyous place, far removed from the evils of the
world. The places and characters in the dream are vivid and believable, and when the dream ends, the affected
creature experiences a longing to return to the place.

APPROACHING THE WINDMILL
The windmill's stone walls are easily climbed. Wooden floors separate the various levels. There are no lights
within, since the hags have darkvision. The Old Svalich Road transitions here from being a winding path through the Balinok Mountains to a lazy trail that hugs the mountainside as it descends into a fog-filled valley. In the heart of the valley you see a walled town near the shores of a great mountain lake, its waters dark and still. A branch in the road leads west to a promontory, atop which is perched a dilapidated stone windmill, its warped wooden vanes stripped bare.

Closer investigation of the windmill yields a few more details:
The onion-domed edifice leans forward and to one side, as though trying to turn away from the stormy gray sky.
You see gray brick walls and dirt-covered windows on the upper floors. A decrepit wooden platform encircles the
windmill above a flimsy doorway leading to the building's interior. Perched on a wooden beam above the door is
a raven. It hops about and squawks at you, seemingly agitated.

A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Insight) check senses that the raven is trying to warn the party.
After delivering its message, the raven flies off toward Vallaki, the town in the valley below (see chapter 5).

Beyond the windmill is the forest. Once atop the windmill's hill, the characters can see a ring of four squat
megaliths at the forest's edge. Ravens can be seen circling in the air above the stones, which are described at
the end of the chapter.

AREAS OF THE WINDMILL
The following areas correspond to labels on the map of
Old Bonegrinder on page 127.

01. GROUND FLOOR

The ground floor has been converted into a makeshift kitchen, but the room is filthy. Baskets and old dishware are piled everywhere. Adding to the clutter is a peddler's cart, a chicken coop, a heavy wooden trunk, and a pretty wooden cabinet with flowers painted on its doors. In addition to the clucking of the chickens, you hear toads croaking.

The sweet smell of pastries blends horridly with a stench that burns your nostrils. The awful odour comes out of an open, upright barrel in the center of the room. Warmth issues from a brick oven against one wall, and a crumbling staircase ascends the wall across from it. Shrieks and cackles from somewhere higher up cause the old mill to shudder.

The ceiling here is 8 feet high. If the characters explore the room, read:

I Small human bones litter the flagstone floor. I

Baking in the oven are a dozen dream pastries. Morgantha checks on them every 10 minutes. The staircase curls up to area 02. The barrel holds glistening, greenish-black demon ichor. Morgantha can use the barrel as a font for a scrying spell. She can also knock on the barrel three times as an action to summon a Dretch. The demon crawls out of the barrel at the end of Morgantha's turn and obeys the night hag's commands for 1 hour, after which it dissolves into a pool of ichor. Morgantha can summon up to nine dretches in this manner before the ichor is gone.
Morgantha's cabinet contains wooden bowls full of herbs and baking ingredients, including flour, sugar, and
several gourds of powdered bone. Hanging on the inside of the cabinet doors are a dozen Jocks of hair. Amid various concoctions are three small, labelled containers that hold elixirs. The first elixir, labelled "Youth," is a golden syrup that magically makes the imbiber appear younger and more attractive for 24 hours. The second elixir, labelled "Laughter," is a nonmagical red tea that infects the imbiber with cackle fever (see "Diseases". in chapter 8, "Running the Game," of the Dungeon Master's Guide).
The third elixir, a greenish milky liquid labelled "Mother's Milk," is actually a dose of pale tincture (see "Poisons" in chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master's Guide).
The chicken coop contains three chickens, a rooster, and a few laid eggs. . . . .
The wooden trunk has tiny holes bored into its lid and contains a hundred croaking toads. Several toads escape
if the lid is lifted, but they are harmless.

  1. BONE MILL
    Unless she has been lured elsewhere, Morgantha is encountered here. This is where she grinds children's
    bones to make the powder for her dream pastries.

A haggard, heavyset old woman with a face as wrinkled as a boiled apple sweeps the floor, pushing around a few old bones and stirring up a cloud of white dust with her broom. She wears a bloodstained, flour-caked apron. A long, sharp bodkin impales her bundled-up mound of gray hair.
The dirt-caked windows allow very little light to enter this eight-foot-high chamber, most of which is taken up by a large millstone connected to a wooden gear shaft that rises through the ceiling in the center of the room. A stone staircase continues up, toward the sound of loud cackling.

The old woman is Morgantha, a night hag. She doesn't mind visitors, as long as they've come to do business.
She tries to sell her latest batch of dream pastries, charging 1 gp for each one. She's proud of her confections
and claims that she uses only the finest ingredients.
If the characters seem uninterested in her wares, she bellows, "Begone!". If they attack or refuse to leave,
she calls out to her, daughters and turns to fight.

The hags operate the millstone manually, since the arms of the windmill no longer function.

  1. BEDROOM
    The night hags Bella Sunbane and Offalia Wormwiggle are here, unless they have been drawn elsewhere.

Dancing around a thick wooden gear shaft in the centre of this cramped, circular room are two ugly young women wearing silk shawls and gowns of stitched flesh. Long needles stick out of their tangled mops of black hair. The women cackle with glee.
In a rotting wooden closet are three crates, stacked one atop another, with small doors set into them. Next to the closet is a heap of discarded clothing. A ladder climbs to a wooden trapdoor in the nine-foot-high ceiling.
A moldy bed with a tattered canopy stands nearby.

Morgantha's daughters are repulsive even in their human guises. When they are not singing, dancing, or telling terrible jokes to one another, they are pricking captured children with needles to make them cry. Any
attempt to free the children incurrs the hags' wrath. The discarded clothing belongs to children whom the
night hags have already devoured.
The trapdoor in the ceiling can be pushed open to reveal area 04.
Each crate is 3 feet square. The top one is empty but the middle and lower ones each contain a captive child.

The outward-facing side of each crate is fitted with a small door that has an iron latch and iron hinges. It can
be unlatched and opened easily from the outside.

The two captured children (LG male and female noncombatants) were taken from the village of Barovia after
being given to the hags by their parents in exchange for dream pastries. The boy, Freek, is seven years old.
The girl, Myrtle, is barely five. Their crates are full of crumbs, as the hags are fattening them up. If freed, neither
child wants to go home, because of what their parents did. They both speak kindly of Ismark Kolyanovich and Ireena Kolyana in Barovia, hoping to be taken to them.

TREASURE
The hags don't use the bed for sleeping, but they store their treasure in it. Six pieces of cheap jewellery (worth
25 gp each) are stuffed in the mouldy straw mattress.

04. Domed Attic

You've reached the windmill's peak-a domed chamber filled with old machinery. There's not much room to move around. Light slips into this attic through small holes in the walls.

Characters searching this space find a few old, abandoned bird's nests. If your card reading reveals that a treasure is here, it's easy to find, either tucked in a bird's nest or buried under some dirt in a corner.

THE MEGALITHS
The four ancient stones near the windmill were erected centuries ago by the valley's original human inhabitants.
Each moss-covered stone bears a crude carving of a city, each of which is associated with a different season.
The city of winter is shown covered with snow, the city of spring is arrayed in flowers, the city of summer has
a sunburst overhead, and the city of autumn is covered with leaves. If the characters ask any of the priests or
scholarly NPCs in Barovia about the ston.es, the characters are told that ancient legends tell of the Four Cities,
said to be the cities of paradise where the Sorted/Morninglord, Mother Night, and the other ancient gods first dwelled.
Several ravens circle overhead, and one pecks at something on top of the stone that depicts the city of autumn.
Upon inspection, the characters see the raven is pecking at a dream pastry, and on the ground "in the center
of the stone circle is a small pile of children's teeth. The hags placed these here to desecrate the stones and
as an offering to the entity they worship, the wicked archfey Ceithlenn of the Crooked Teeth.

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