Bergatha, the Hag (BURR GAH THA)
Bergatha was a Hag terrorizing the town of Ardrest and acted as the primary antagonist of the Frostyear Guardians for their first adventure. Her plot to bring misery to the area was ended in 1491 when she was slain by the Guardians at the base of what would become Hagsfall Tower.
Physical Description
Body Features
Hags are expert shapeshifters, but while they can hide their most monstrous qualities, few can truly hide their hideousness. Bergatha generally would appear as a twisted and gnarled old woman, but could not or would not disguse her hideous flesh and twisted limb. This earned her the name among the northern goblin tribe of "the crooked lady." When revealed in her true form she was a hulking figure larger and more fearsome than an ogre or even a troll.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Bergatha's long history can be divided into three major phases:
The Three Witch Period
Although most of the details have faded over time, a powerful coven of witches once ruled over the area around Ardrest. Bergatha was the youngest and weakest of them. If the tale told in The Defeat of the Witches Three is accurate, she escaped death at the hands of heroes unlike the rest of her coven and, as is common to hags, took a personal grudge against the people of Ardrest and all of their descendants.Bergatha Plots her Revenge
Being the weakest of the defeated hags, Bergatha set about attempting to find a way to secure her own coven, grow her power, and eventually take revenge and drink in the suffering of the local area. Though exact dates are unclear there were two important steps to her process of revenge that both transpired. First was her discovery of the Hag Ritual which would allow her to form new hags with assured loyalty using new born children - the suffering this would bring on local families made this prospect only sweeter for the hag. It is unclear how many attempts she made at the ritual, and how many women and children died due to her attempts, but her first "success" was in 1463 with the halfling Lendi Greenvalley. She would have refined the process before 14 years later when Bergatha was able to birth Marti, hag. Second and interlocking event that made her plan possible was her discovery of a font of power beneath the swamps north of Ardrest. To what extent the Lost Fingers cult lead or supported Bergatha in finding and unlocking the secrets of the Ilyrinan Machine beneath the swamp is unclear. But evidence suggests that the cult was using Bergatha's desire for power to have her manipulate the machine for their own ends and cared little for the witch's plans. Still, this font allowed her to draw on considerable elemental magical power to augment her own plans. Bergatha, blinded by her own ambitions moved her lair here to better draw on this energy.Bergatha's Fate
Bergatha never content with what she had, had formed a coven of three by 1490, leading to a massive increase in power for the three witches and increased suffering for Ardrest, but she viewed her first daughter, Lendi, as a flawed and near mindless creature. Bergatha would attempt to inact the ritual again, abducting Alma Halfhill in 1491 on the eve of the Fortyear Festival. This would bring her plot to the attention of the Guardian's who would first track her to High Perch where the hag had taken the form of the harpy queen there. Though she fought the fledgling heroes in the body of Aureai, she was slain. Luckily for her, Bergatha's paranoia had lead her to prepare for even that eventuality. Being slain even in a possessed body weakened Bergatha considerably, forcing her to retreat, and draw energy from her coven to restore herself. This manifested as a serious sickness for young Marti in town, and the Guardians embarked on a dangerous quest that, through the intervention of the Auroral Mistress not only healed Marti, but allowed her to resist Bergatha's will. In a rage, and angered by the happiness of the town celebrating its festival, Bergatha attacked during the night, with the intention of capturing and reasserting her control over Marti. Though her attack was repelled by the town, she did manage to escape back to her lair with her coven in tact. Unfortunately the Guardians were close behind. Backed into a corner in her lair, the hags fought the heroes, and Bergatha in desperation, used her strange magics to fully open the gateway that was the Ilyrian machine. The energy the flowed into the witch gave her considerable power, forever altered her form, and set off a series of geological upheavals that would alter the landscape for miles. Still it was not enough, and through a hard fought battle Bergatha was slain, Lendi cast into an alternate plane, and the coven broken.Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Bergatha like most hags had very simple but very evil motivations. She wanted nothing more that to gather more power for the purpose of making mortals miserable and feeding off that misery. Bergatha sought to make her own coven to inflict suffering on Adrest for no greater reason than she could and the town had wronged her long ago.
Social
Family Ties
Speech
Bergatha always spoke in rhymes, though it was unclear if this was part of her nature or a conscious choice of hers.
Alignment
Chaotic Evil
Current Status
Deceased
Species
Date of Death
20 Ches
Life
1150 DR
1491 DR
341 years old
Circumstances of Death
Death by Heroes
Place of Death
Her lair, now Hagsfall Tower
Pronouns
She/her
Aligned Organization
Appears in...
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