Baba Yaga

The stars keep her secrets, the stone her memory – Grandmother, Grandmother! Her kindness akin to treachery.

Medium fey, chaotic neutral

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 399 (47d8 + 188)
Speed 40 ft., fly 30 ft. (in mortar and pestle)

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
14 (+2) 18 (+4) 18 (+4) 16 (+3) 22 (+6) 19 (+5)

Saving Throws Constitution +10, Wisdom +12, Charisma +11
Skills Arcana +15, Nature +15, Perception +12, Persuasion +11
Damage Resistances cold; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities necrotic
Condition Immunities frightened, poisoned
Senses truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 22
Languages all
Challenge 20 (25,000 XP)

Special Traits

  • Cronesight. Baba Yaga has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. As an action, she can observe a target and magically know its current emotional state. If the target fails a DC 19 Charisma saving throw, she also knows the creature’s alignment and discovers a hidden secret about the target.
  • Cronespeech. Creatures with Intelligence 3 or lower obey Baba Yaga unquestioningly. Her utterances are often captured as engravings on nearby stone and wood surfaces. These magical reproductions of her words are made in the Common tongue and fade after several days.
  • Grandmother’s Teeth. The iron teeth of Baba Yaga are sentient, magical, and airborne dentures that sometimes work at cross-purposes to the Old Witch. If the teeth and Baba Yaga are getting along, the teeth reside inside her mouth, providing her with a bite attack and access to its spell list. Baba Yaga can cast a spell from the teeth’s innate spell list as a bonus action, using her spellcasting ability. Spells cast in this way are removed from the teeth’s spells per day total. If the witch and her teeth are not getting along, the teeth will fly around casting its spells as it wishes (often to the benefit of Baba Yaga’s enemies).
  • Legendary Resistance (3/day). If Baba Yaga fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead.
  • Mortar and Pestle. Baba Yaga flies in a large mortar and pestle, which is immune to damage and can’t be the target of spells or effects. It provides the witch partial cover from ranged attacks. Baba Yaga doesn’t provoke an opportunity attack when she flies out of an enemy’s reach. If Baba Yaga is knocked prone, stunned, or incapacitated while flying in the mortar, it will gently set her on the ground and disappear for 1 hour. The pestle remains with the witch.
  • Innate Spellcasting. Baba Yaga’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 20, +12 to hit with spell attacks). She can cast the following spells innately, requiring only verbal components:

Actions

  • Multiattack. Baba Yaga makes two pestle slap attacks and one bite attack, or three pestle slap attacks.
  • Pestle Slap. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 31 (6d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage. The target must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or have disadvantage on concentration checks until the end of its next turn.
  • Bite (if iron teeth are equipped). Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 37 (6d10 + 4) piercing damage and the target must succeed on a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of Baba Yaga until the end of its next turn.
  • Breath of the Bone Mother (Recharge 5-6). Calling on her elemental powers and her mastery of crone-magic, Baba Yaga exhales a great wind in a 40-foot cone that smells of fetid mires and sausages. Creatures caught in that area must make a DC 18 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a target takes 45 (10d8) necrotic damage and is affected by the bestow curse spell for 1 minute. On a success, a target takes half the necrotic damage but is not cursed. In addition, a creature damaged by the wind releases a stinking cloud (DC 18 Constitution saving throw against the cloud’s poison) centered on it at the beginning of its next turn. The cloud dissipates after 1d4 rounds.

Reactions

  • Dance of the Time Taunter (1/day). When Baba Yaga’s turn ends, she can take an additional turn. A creature able to see Baba Yaga dance through time has its understanding of the universe challenged and must succeed on a DC 18 Intelligence saving throw or be stunned until the end of its next turn. A set of iron dentures flap through the air, screeching in a voice like metal scraping on metal.
  • Scholar. The dentures are scholars of the arcane and are often found exploring ruins, especially ancient sites of magic. They see themselves as intellectually superior to their owner and chastise Baba Yaga for her use of baser forms of magic.
  • Willful. The iron teeth are usually content sitting firmly in Baba Yaga’s mouth, assisting the witch. However, should she anger the dentures, either by ignoring their request to visit some forgotten tower or scolding them too much for insolence, the dentures may abandon her for a while. They may work against her if the two are particularly at odds.

The Iron Teeth of Baba Yaga

Tiny fey, chaotic neutral

Armor Class 14
Hit Points 67 (15d6+15)
Speed 0 ft., fly 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
12 (+1) 18 (+4) 12 (+1) 18 (+4) 10 (+0) 10 (+0)

Skills Arcana +6, History +6
Damage Resistances lightning
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages Common, Dwarvish, Elvish, Infernal, Sylvan
Challenge 2 (450 XP)

Special Traits

Actions

  • Pinch. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (3d4 + 4) piercing damage.

Legendary Actions

Baba Yaga can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options listed. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. She regains spent legendary actions at the start of her turn.

  • At Will Spell. Baba Yaga casts one at will spell from her list or from her iron teeth’s list if it is equipped.
  • Pestle Slap. Baba Yaga makes one pestle slap attack.
  • Breath of the Bone Mother (Costs 2 Actions). Baba Yaga uses Breath of the Bone Mother, if it is available.

About

Baba Yaga is a renowned witch and appears as a stooped, old woman with an impossibly long nose and wild white hair. Her milky yellow eyes stare, unblinking, at no fixed spot. She has no teeth, instead wearing a set of sentient, magical, iron dentures. Her teeth are often off pursuing their own agenda, and the two bicker constantly. She wears frayed burlap robes and, occasionally, a black silk scarf over her escaping locks. Her skin has a bark-like quality, and she smells of lightning and pine. While perfectly able to walk, the witch is most often seen flying about the world in her enormous mortar and pestle, the latter of which she uses as a rudder in flight.

Collector of Secrets. Few planes or places are free from Baba Yaga’s madness and meddling. She desires knowledge above all things and greatly enjoys knowing the secrets of others. Many queens and kings have been extorted by the Old Witch, who records their secrets on parchment stored in a chest made from a giant emerald. She has a weakness for enchanted baubles, and her home, a wooden hut that travels on huge chicken legs and whose interior defies natural law, is stuffed full of magical bric-a-brac.

Nightmare and Nurturer. Those who’ve bargained with Baba Yaga successfully claim she is a fair and honest person with a fondness for animals and wild things. She actively seeks strong adventurers to pursue dangerous quests for her, usually to acquire either a great secret or a powerful artifact. However, she is also a pitiless murderer, who slips through the shadows in the moonlight to feed on sleeping innocents with her wretched iron teeth. She holds grudges and does not forget the smallest slight.

Master of Many. She collects servants as she does trinkets and takes great pleasure in adding to her soul horde. The Three Horsemen draw their power from her and do her bidding. At various times, she has held the soul of Koschei and forced him to perform legendary feats on her behalf. The Old Witch is known to appear in several places at once. Some scholars believe Baba Yaga is actually three identical sisters, each with her own personality and preoccupations.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Creature Codex. © 2018 Open Design LLC; Authors Wolfgang Baur, Dan Dillon, Richard Green, James Haeck, Chris Harris, Jeremy Hochhalter, James Introcaso, Chris Lockey, Shawn Merwin, and Jon Sawatsky.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Creature Codex. © 2018 Open Design LLC; Authors Wolfgang Baur, Dan Dillon, Richard Green, James Haeck, Chris Harris, Jeremy Hochhalter, James Introcaso, Chris Lockey, Shawn Merwin, and Jon Sawatsky.

This is not the complete license attribution - see the full license for this page