¶ Grey Miss Myrtle
| Ancestry | Fey (Hag) |
|---|---|
| Titles | The Witch of Thorns Coven of One |
| Age | >1,000, exact age unknown (Campaign 1) |
| Allies | None |
| Enemies | Kutkh Leotar Magqen Yelen Haussman Wayfinder Loe |
| Status | Alive |
¶ Appearance
Myrtle was a tall, muscular, and bulky creature. Her skin was grey, with cysts and lumps visible. Her dark brown hair was matted and unkempt. Her face was wide with a prominent broken nose. On her right side, it fell to about her shoulder, while her left side was patchy and short. Her left eye stayed open wide at all times, and her right was narrow and squinted. Her nails were long and cracked. Her teeth were made of iron, and her crooked smile missed several teeth.
She wore a tattered brown dress, held together by patches and many rows of stitches. Branches of jagged thorny wood sprouted from her back. When engaging in battle, she also donned decorative armor made of bone.
¶ Personality
Grey Miss Myrtle was wicked and cruel, relishing in nothing more than the anguish of others. She took joy in causing her guests to be revolted or forlorn. If they could be brought low by the result of their own efforts, all the better.
However, as a hag, it was in her nature to be transactional. Should a guest beseech her for a favor, she would engage in a relatively good faith negotiation. The terms of a deal, once struck, would be adhered to, though she was under no obligation to disclose the ramifications of carrying out a task on her behalf. She was also a shrewd figure, and would take any opportunity she could find to twist the terms of a deal in her favor. Nonetheless, her powerful and strange magic led many desperate folk to accept her deals over the years.
¶ Abilities
Myrtle's size and muscle made her a force to be reckoned with in close quarters, able to capture her foes in a crushing grip, sink her nails deep into their flesh, or bite into them with her iron teeth.
Over her long life, Myrtle had accumulated a deep knowledge of bizarre magic rituals. She was shown to be capable of creating and enchanting objects, transfiguring creatures, and even returning the dead to life (albeit in a different form than they once had.) She kept large and powerful creatures such as ogres and trolls, transfigured as small woodland creatures, which could have their necks snapped to return them to their natural form.
Myrtle could remove one of her teeth and fashion it into an iron ring, which let her observe and communicate with anyone who wore it. The rings could also be seen to exert some form of control over their wearers in extreme cases.
Myrtle's very presence could warp the fabric of her surroundings. Piles of stones would stack themselves into small cairns, and smooth pathways would grow dangerous spikes or thorns. Echoes of sounds made in her presence could be heard in dark corners even miles away from her.
Once she recovered the tomes of the Bloodweed Witch, she obtained control over her and her powers. While holding the soul tome, she could psychically control the body of her mother and command it to fight on her behalf. This also granted her knowledge of the Bloodweed Witch's Shadow Plague, which could mutate an afflicted creature and waste away its mind, instilling a violent disposition and rendering it loyal to her. Kutkh himself was afflicted with this curse, transforming him into the brutish monster known as Skullcrusher.
Upon recovering and subjugating the severed hand of her sister, Gertrude, Myrtle claimed the power of Witches' Coven all to herself, and became a Coven of One. With the power of 3 witches at her disposal, she gained a deeper control over all of their disciplines of magic.
¶ Known History
¶ First Meeting
Grey Miss Myrtle was first encountered by Leotar and Kutkh at her hut after the untimely death of their traveling companion Dover. To have him restored to life, they agreed to retrieve a book from the Mahogany Reserve in Lindford. She gave Leo an iron ring to use to communicate with her.
Upon their return, she arranged a ritual to revive the butcher. Mixing a variety of ingredients including a phoenix feather and the volunteered blood of both of the pair into a cauldron, she constructed a new body for the spirit to inhabit. However, before it could, the pair would have to defeat a dark shade.
In the ensuing fight, Kutkh's wild magic summoned the unicorn Shakti, who banished the spirit and immediately turned hostile toward the witch. At this time, Kutkh stole into her hut and used a nearby bottle of dust of disappearance. Myrtle arrived in the hut and began gathering her most valued possessions, including a head in a jar. However, her foes forced her out, and she fled the scene in her enchanted flying rocking chair. Thereafter, Kutkh revealed that he had stolen back the book they retrieved for her.
She sent a number of creatures and servants after the pair, who defended themselves time after time. One such group of pursuers carried a bottle, apparently of dust of disappearance. The pair, returning to Lindford, gave it to their friend Barakaas to use in a time of trouble.
¶ Joining Splintered Bone
She arrived at the ruins of the city of Cyr in Valdrunen, the Gruesome Valley, where she impersonated a seer by the name of Baggi. There, she reanimated the failed necromancer Seldras in the form of a Flameskull, and tasked him to create potions of regenration from the blood of an imprisoned troll.
When the Storm Breakers arrived, she trapped them behind a magically conjured wall of thorns and demanded they return her possessions or be killed. Leo destroyed the magic emerald found in the Gemstone Keep, revealing that housed a Dao - Thiafi Al'Issini, Grand Overseer of the Bountiful Depths and Countess of the Ruby Chateau. As payment for freeing her, the genie cleared a path through the wall and facilitated their escape.
Leo and Kutkh returned to Lindford to find Barakaas dead, having aspyxiated - the "dust of disappearance" given to him was, in truth, dust of choking, deliberately planted by Miss Myrtle as a trap for the pair.
The party researched the book that Myrtle coveted - an apparently nonmagical memoir from a woman named Agatha.
While the battle between Splintered Bone and Lindford raged on, Myrtle rode in above the fight astride a chimera, which carried a large iron cauldron which spewed thick, poisonous vapors over the city. Several of her minions attacked the pursuing party, including a banderhobb which swallowed Yelen and carried her off into the poison fog.
Leo contacted Myrtle directly, using the ring he had been given when they first met, and arranged a negotiation in the public library portion of the Mahogany Reserve. The rest of the Storm Breakers laid in wait, invisibly, for an ambush. A trade of Yelen's life for the memoirs of Agatha was briefly discussed, but ultimately devolved into hostilities.
Kutkh descended from the ceiling in invisible giant spider form, affording Leo the opportunity to free Yelen, who wrestled her bag free from the hag's grip. Myrtle once again beckoned Seldras who joined the fray alongside the chimera, setting the wooden library aflame. Myrtle magically sprouted grasping vines from the floor to the ceiling, pulling the floor above down atop the fight. Leo was the first to retrieve the book, as Kutkh lay on the verge of death. Myrtle cast a hold person spell to paralyze Leo and abscond with her book, flying into the night inside the cauldron.
¶ Under The Sea
The Storm Breakers called on Ratha the diviner to give them insight into Myrtle's whereabouts and motives. A Scrying spell revealed her to be trekking west across the mountains of Gholsonis, and a Legend Lore revealed the book to be tied to the heart and soul of a figure known as the Bloodweed Witch, and that the mermaids beneath the Malestrom kept her story. With this, they resolved to chase her down into the Beryllic Sea.
As she took to the sea, she began to exercise her power over her mother's magics. The Sahaugin, the Sea Devils, once-victims of the Shadow Plague, grew aggressive and began to mount raids, attacking sailor and invading along the Lilac coast. Their leader, Baron K'rel, made use of her magic to command humanoid shark abominations as well.
As the party began their passage across the sea aboard the Dawnchaser, Ratha shared with them another vision of Myrtle beneath the ocean, practicing her magic in a large undersea cave, the former throne of her deceased mother, the Bloodweed Witch. Along that journey, Kutkh's ventures under the waves caused him to become afflicted with the Shadow Plague. Over the subsequent weeks, the plague would take its toll, and in his last days of lucidity, he abandoned the party to follow its call directly to her.
The Storm Breakers arrived to her lair, and were ambushed by her minions. They fought and killed Baron K'rel and delved deeper into the lair, periodically being battered with dark, necrotic blasts of energy. They came upon a a ritual room, in which they found an empty jar beside a large cauldron and the burnt remnants of phoenix feathers.
The party then emerged into cavern with a river, waterfall, and a graveyard of ships. Leo and Yelen hid, while Wayfinder and Loe investigated. Loe discovered a possible space behind the rock of the waterfall, and used her shaper magic to open the way. They were met, however, with another blast of necrotic energy, as from the other side emerged Miss Myrtle herself. She greeted wayfinder, and mused as to the presence of the others.
Hidden away, a hasted Yelen used her magic to try to teleport to Kutkh, still marked by her spell. She found herself in pitch black, surprised and frightened by a form lurking in the dark behind the nearby Miss Myrtle. Yelen was sent tumbling across the ground by some unseen force, and due to a lost concentration on Haste, was stunned - Giving Myrtle just enough time to rip away the hand of Gertrude, the Witch of Currents and Gales, toss Yelen unceremoniously to the water below, and walk away. As she did so, she chuckled and gave a command into the dark: Skullcrusher, say hello.
The grotesque and deformed creature called Skullcrusher - Kutkh fully corrupted by the Shadow Plague - emerged, and fought the party on her orders. With the sacrifice of Shakti's life, the party subdued and restored Kutkh to his dwarven self.
¶ The Final Confrontation
The party pursued her deeper into the lair, at some point crossing into the Shadowfell itself,and arrived at the throne room, which Loe melted away the door to. Myrtle sat at the throne, with the hand of her sister attached to her own, and the shaded figure of her semi-restored mother looming behind. Having subjugated both and stripped them of their wills, she siphoned their power for herself, beoming a self-proclaimed coven of one.
She thanked the party for helping her reunite with not only her mother, but her sister as well. She offered each of the part a gift in thanks. The Storm Breakers rebutted her gratitude, and their final conflict began. Though they tried their best, either fortune or fate disfavored them, and Myrtle's newfound powers proved too difficult to overcome. Loe was slain, and both Leo and Kutkh were rendered unconscious.
Myrtle stopped the fighting, declaring herself the victor, and whisked them away to the entrance. She gave promise that they could leave unharmed, but if they faced her again, she would show no such mercy twice. Leotar and Kutkh, both brought to their feet once again, chose instead to face her, knowing they walked into certain death. Leo left his precious sword with Yelen and charged back in, followed shortly thereadter by a bear-form Kutkh, as the Yelen and Wayfinder retreated with their lives.
Grey Miss Myrtle's actions and whereabouts after this remain unknown.