I've opened this forum to give a starting place for a new section we expect to see at Planewalker soon. The new section will be focused on nighthags and hordlings, and the Grey Waste in general...
Questions, comments, and volunteer-ism are more than welcome, so if you're interested just hop in and the section manager should be along shortly 
Armoury99 Reporting for duty!
*salutes*
No idea exactly what or how, but will definitely contribute something. Perhaps a expand on Hel's realm, as its something I've tinkered with previously. But frankly I'm open to suggestions.
And I like Squaff's Macbeth feel, by the way. Death, doom, magic and gloom; always a curse and never a boon...
Why the Wastes if I may ask? Not that it's an unpromising setting, but it seems like other planes need more help. Bytopia, for example.
Are we intending to focus on things other than 'loths for this project, then?
That is precisely the idea. I would have more details, but this is a continuation of a project that joyblood was involved in years ago on the newsgroups, not I - so he'll be the one to fill in the gaps I think.
Naturally, being currently addicted to Shemmy's first storyhour (damn it's long, yes it's worth it, and no I'm nowhere near done), my mind immediately jumps to baern and 'loths. I know that's not the point, but I'm going to drop off this theory/plothook here anyway. If you want me to move it somewhere else, or just delete it, just tell me. I can take it. I won't cry... much.
The Lodestones of Misery that dot all three layers of the Gray Wastes are the very reason that the Demented have not gone into that good night with the rest of their kind. They noticed that the primal exemplars such as themselves were becoming less active and slowly fading into their respective planes. While the rest of their race succumbed to this apathy, the thirteen Demented managed to wrench that emotion out of their beings and lock it away in a place that can never be opened but by their own kind (Ghoresh Chasm). The parts of the Waste that were to be held together by their essence began to crumble, so the Demented created the Lodestones of Misery. These artifacts fuel emotions from the rest of the inhabitants and funnel it into the plane itself, thus replacing the essence of the Demented that was originally intended to do the job. There are thus thirteen such Lodestones, but there used to be sixteen. Three of them, one from each layer, were destroyed, chopped up into tiny little triangles, as their owners went a bit more barmy than was planned and combined their beings into one - Apomps. More drastic actions had to be taken to hold the plane together, and all three layers ended up being tied into a metaphysical knot at the points of weakness. A town was built on that place... the Town at the Center. The residents are able to intercept some of the inrushing emotions to that place, thus preventing the gloom from affecting them as much.
Hello everybody,
I'll post more details on this project soon, only so much for now:
The project is set in the Waste because it focusses on Night Hags and Hordlings, and that's where they reside most of the time
The idea is to give these two overlooked races more space. After all, the Hordlings are the fifth of the true fiendish races - Baatezu, Yugoloths, Tanar'ri and Gehreleths -, and it's the only race that has practically NO details, only stuff like "the Hordlings destroy anything they meet".
Personally, I don't see them as mindless horrors, but as creatures as complex as any fiend, and that's what this project should show.
Quite the same goes for the Night Hags, which of course are detailled quite nicely in various sources, but all the descriptions still lack the true horror that the Hags hide. The project should weave new mysteries and myths, and turn Night Hags into subtle nightmares...
More later!
Here is another question for the book: will there be section of book dedicated for new monsters, spells and magic items? (I´m having few ideas for those too).
Here is one question: How much pages there will be, becaouse I had this idea of little hoardling pictures (each different of course) to be put in corner of the page (y´know where page number stands).
Actually, we'll gonna have a couple of PDF book releases over time.
As for the very first project that's currently in planning / work-in-project , I can't really give many details yet - simply because we're still in the planning stage.
I love the idea of little hordlings on each page.. or maybe always one Night Hag on the left, one Hordling on the right side, or something? 
If you design those pictures right - the page numbering can be automated into the image - say if they're holding up scrolls or some such 'blank' spot.
I´m asking about sections for items, magic and monsters becaouse I have ideas for some:
Items idea is: "Hands of Power" are special form of hag primal and coruptive magic. Each hand is esentialy candle created from hands of criminals (or in case of Night Hags, dead fiends). Each hand must be lit for magic to have effect, and its magic affects only the person who lit the candle (but candle also bestoves terible curses and bad side effects on wilder). Each candle is treated as minor artifact, and idea came from "Hands of Power" from Ravenloft setting wich are created by "ordinary" hags, so I was thinking what unholy candles would Night Hags make.
Whoah... apparently my last post was way off on what the subject of this enterprise is. My mistake. Here's something closer to the source:
I believe that hags should have a different feel for their magic than your typical PC caster. PC's have their researched or innate spells per day and their enchanted or charged magic items. Monsters, hags included, have their spell-like abilities and, in some cases, spells per day as well. All of this is familiar to most PC's, and familiarity breeds contempt. Sure, hags might have some Staff of Woodlands or something, but they could also focus more on unique magic items. Less known and less powerful items can still be used to annoy the hag's opponents. Candles, cauldrons, strange seeds, alchemical stones, and various preserved and magical fleshy bits add flavor while still putting the hag's allowed loot to good use. I see hags as perverted druids, drawing from nature but desecrating it at the same time. There are few things that bring the point that you are fighting evil home as being beaten to death by the mummified and partially eaten hand of the very village maiden you were sent to rescue, particularly if it now spews acid from under the fingernails.
Night hags, being extraplanar in origin, would be less nature-oriented. Taking a book out of Torment, they could be focused on acruing vile and forgotten knowledge, solving puzzles that shouldn't be solved, and hiding pure horror behind an ugly but powerless facade. Unlike on the Prime, nobody in Sigil would look twice at an old lady, no matter how ugly and magical, even if they know that she's from the Gray Waste. That goes double if said lady acts like your grandmother. Nobody would even assume that she is breeding the essences of a lantern archon and a mane in her basement, keeping both of them completely lucid so that the horror she draws from them can be given out as "Granny's Sleep Medicine" to the neighborhood kids, who are oddly troubled by nightmares. The money she earns from those beautiful embroidered blankets she sells at market (made of cervidal pelts dipped in Styx lye) happen to go to her cousin in Niflheim for their joint larvae herding venture. Once they get enough, they might just sell their services to that rash Ultroloth, twisting his body, mind, and soul to empower him but ultimately make him their personal plaything.
This is exactly my impression of how their magic should work. I think what you're basically talking about is spells and items in the spirit of folklore, rather than the spirit of Jack Vance (which is mainly what standard D&D magic is ported from). Souldn't be too hard to fit one into the other - Squaffs variant "Hands of Glory" being a good example. Add to that the secrets and darkness and things best left alone theme of Night Hags and the fact that the place they are (to quote) "twisted druids" of is the Grey Waste itself, and we're about perfect... at least from my point of view. Does anyone have a contrasting view of them, however?
oh, and v.nice artwork suggestion too!
"Well I think they're just nice old ladies who have a bit of a smell but are otherwise harmless. One of them even gave me this nice choco- urk!"
--Unknown Clueless discussing Night Hags.
Anyway, I think the important thing to remember about Night Hags is that they are hags who come out at night and, um, do bad stuff. It's hard to know exactly what they're doing because usually they've gotten slaughtered by the PCs by then. It is, however, usually something gross and sinister like turning babies into gold or making it rain blood or the like. Of course, no matter what sinister plot they are concocting, it always involves getting a bunch of random junk together and sticking it in a pot.
What I envision for this project is us finally understanding why they want to turn babies into gold and why they have to stick a bunch of random crap in a cauldron to do it. Canon has pretty much given us what they do, but it's up to us to give them a reason for doing it.
"I shall get you, my little pretty, and your little ethyik, too!"
-- Night Hag, known only as "Wicked Wich of Waste" to Thaseva Longreach. 
Hags are connected (even Night hags) to fey folk who are connected to nature, and fey folk no matter how chaotic still abides the rules and laws of nature, hags do the opposite: they bend and twist rules of nature to suit their needs, and to do this they´ll go as far to twist even nature itself (or in case of night hags fabric of planes).
In Ravenloft they have given hags corruptive aura trait, wich does only cosmetic effects on enviroment (like gnarled trees or mutated animals, 3 leged goats and such disturbing things) but that is how they explainded their strange efects on nature. Here´s idea: maybe it is coruptive aura of night hags reason why larvae transform into hoardlings.
Prehaps they turn babies into gold just to see if it can be done?
And as of crap they boil in couldrons: hag magic is more primal, more ancient than the magic of men, and it similar how they described sorcerers magic: to them it is like composig music, while hags magic is more simmilar to jazz: it requires band, talent, and lots of improvisation.
I would definately love to contribute to hordelings. Because although I do have some Planescape sources. My range of info is sadly limited I do however own a copy of Faces of Evil:The fiends of my computer and I was somewhat dissappointed with the outcome of neutral evil people. The idea that they spend they're entire lives plotting and sceming and backstabbing only to end up and a bunch of amorphous blobs that destroy everything thing makes no sense to me. And seeing as they are hardly touched upon it would be a perfect oppertunity to contribute to the planescape universe without making any major planar errors. Although I am still well versed in most other topics. I'm more just afraid I'd be replacing someone else's info. Won't be all that much trouble if its the hordelings seeing as there is so very little on them.
That is a great idea. I have a closet full of babies I was wondering what to do with.
Idea for hag artwork: Night hag is covered by strange shadow, her face has rather worried expression,she is looking up skywards. There is some sort of rift opening, and there we can see farmhouse ready to fall.
Would you like me to draw this for the book?
*lol* Great idea, though I really wonder how you got there... 
Would be great if you made that picture!
Simple, simmilarity between Night Hags with Wicked Wiches of Oz are simply too obvious.
Or it was sudden whiff of astral wind, I´m not shure, anyways Oz books, like PS is full with odd and fantastic characters and places, and they have allways have been inspiration to artists worldwide.
So I thougt there are hags and there are wortexes and planar conduits who blow stuff around the planes, and it would be nice to have this classic and iconic moment in Planescape too.
I´m thinking not to make this picture fullpage but half page so there could be space for text.
About Night Hags magic: maybe it'd suitable to make it founded on relation with Demiplane of Shadow and Region of Dreams?
As the Demiplane of Shadow is connected to every plane (save transitive), hags could've developed method of shifting through planes using this realm. Also, they might have ability to enter Dream and haunt their victims.
haheh wrote:
Ooooh there you got a topic
This one was a piece of wild discussions back when we first tried to start this project. I think Night Hags and Hordlings-magic will become a topic for a book of its own!
I really like this idea too. Previously I had assumed that (if they didn't have an 'official' origin), hordlings were just the souls of petitioners who managed to overcome the drain of the Grey Waste, turning into unique creatures as their sins of the soul became incarnate in the flesh.
Is there any suggestion of a canonical connection between night hags and nightmares? The creatures, that is -- hags are clearly involved with bad dreams!
I'm not familiar with the life cycle of nightmares, but I know they have a final resting place in one of the glooms of the Waste. Nightmares are also capable of following a hag when she goes ethereal, and they're the right level to make cohorts for advanced hags. The image of a hag flying across a moonless night on a fire-breathing shadow horse certainly fits the whole witchery theme we've got going here.
Well, in Squaring the Circle the PCs are accosted by a Night Hag blackmailer who is riding a Nightmare. Of course, any suitably evil being could work out an arrangement with one, but I like the idea of a connection.
I've always liked Hags, probably due to playing Torment quite a lot, and I've always thought they were underrepresented in cannon. I've always portrayed them as purveyors of immediate gratification with long term consequences that will haunt the buyer. For instance:
A young woman approaches a hag to acquire a salve to prevent her from getting pregnant. The hag provides it cheaply, but the salve immediately and irrevocably sterilizes the girl while causing her to develop an obsession with children
A blind man pleads a hag to restore his sight. In a long, painful process she does so by replacing one of his dead eyes with one of her own. From that day on, the formerly blind man sees not only what is in front of him, but also flashes of what the hag sees. And a hag sees many things that no sane person would want to see.
A man wants to live forever to avoid a contract, so. . . Well, I think most of us know how that one turns out. 
Mythologicaly-speaking, hags in northern europe are "night mares" - you can find them shapeshifted into horses, where they lure you into riding them, after which they gallop through the night and usually plunge you into a pool (magically stuck to their back), where you drown. Although I can't recall the spelling, the norse word is something like "nokkriddr" and is similar to the old english term for a nightmare, which means "hag ridden"
- this is from memory, so excuse me if it turns out to be wrong.
Now that is interesting. Armoury, why don't you split off that bit with the etymology and mythology and start a new thread on connecting hags and nightmares? It looks like a promising avenue.
Legend has it night hags will leave their children with mortal families as changelings until they reach a certain age and perform a terrible ritual to complete their transformation. In fact, night hags do not reproduce. They started this lie to help them buy or steal odd children -- best not to ask why.
New hags come into existence as follows. Every so often the Gray Waste infects a larva with madness, a violent hatred not just of color but of all life. Adult hags will drive these larvae away or kill them to prevent a mad larva from eating its fellow stock. Instead of nourishing the cannibal, this fuel goes to create a nightmare spirit within the body, giving material shape to the cold influence of the plane itself. The spirit becomes a true night hag after eating its host from the inside.
Mature hags or agents of madness retain the ability to infuse larvae with hostility. They can create nightmare steeds by focusing their mind on a larva once a night for at least six nights, then allowing it to develop anywhere on the Waste. But nine times out of ten, perhaps because they never use larvae they can sell as "officer material", the process yields unsuitable candidates who will grow into hordlings if they survive the changes. A night hag of any intelligence will focus on many subjects in a day and ditch any who start to look dangerous.
(I had a little bit about intermediaries helping new hags break into the larva trade, since there should be infinite newcomers. But it doesn't quite fit the atmosphere you're talking about.)
Jem wrote:
Okay, I'm close to finishing the guidelines stuff. I'll post them here within the next 24 hours, along with a collection of ideas, topics and themes, and a more detailled description what the first book will be about (possibly even something like a "preview table of contents").
Note that, while I think it's important to have a project leader give the "final word" on things, everything is by default open for discussion. It's me who started this project, but I want this to become our project
Will do shortly. Let me just get my facts straight
Oddly nough I had a dream about a hag/witch riding a broomstick, chasing me and my father through a mall when I was about 6 or 7. And she cried 'Ho ho ich bin der Weihnachtsman (Santa, as you say)'. This shit really happend, no hoax.
Also, I like my hags the way they are: a bit crazy and a bit more myterious than the fiends.
Another idea: since nightmares are outsiders, maybe their "death" is similar to those of gods. They appear dead (they rot to skelletons) but in fact they sleep the sleep of ages and wait time when pact with hags is no more. Then the nightmares will rise from their sleep and planes will shake with thunder of their hoofs. Bwahahaha...
Hmm. Ethymology.
The german word for a nightmare is "Alptraum". "Traum" meaning dream and "Alp" being derived from "Alb", another word for "Elb", Elf. It is said that nightmares originated from creatures of the night, black elves or something which could well be nighthags sitting on your chest while you sleep, sometimes whispering into your ears or otherwise influencing you.
Interestingly, another old word for nightmare, which is no longer used, is Nachtmahr. "Nacht" means, of course, Night and I'm pretty sure that's were the english word is coming from. Mahr could be derived from an old word for horse, by the way, but I'm not sure what that would mean in mythology.
In fact, in the post map illustrating the Gray Waste, the nightmare graveyard appears to be a giant collection of such skeletons, itself in the shape of the skeleton of a horse. Nearby is the town of Corpus, which is a living town made from stitched-together people whose state of existence somehow manages to shield them from the emotion-draining effects of the Waste. Corpus is itself in the shape of a giant humanoid -- roughly on the same scale as the nightmare's graveyard.
Ever since seeing that, I've been enamored of the notion that one day Corpus is going to get up off the ground and ride that skeletal nightmare...
.... *YOINK* My players are so gonna Hate you for this idea...
Although the original dark elves(svartalfs) , at least from norse mythology did live in the ground they were a lot kinder than they are portrayed today. Their skin was turned black from working the forges by the roots of yggdrasil in Svartalfheim. They were also considered to be noble and kind creatures but very wrathful if spoken ill of.(possibly through nightmares?) Do the drow of Svartalfheim have ties to the night hags of the the grey waste maybe? Just a thought...
While Alptraum or Albtraum (your choice how to write it) indeed means "nightmare", the relation of Albs or Alp is actually shaky. While in German, Elb, Alb, Alp and Alf can, or did at one point, equal "elf", it doesn't have that many ties to nowadays fantasy elves.
Usually, "Alp" is a common word used here for translating english creature names such as "wraith".
An Alptraum (nightmare) features a Nachtalb, or Nachtmahr (sound familiar?), which would be a "night elf". The "mahr" can be interpreted from various angles, in old germanic languages it basically comes down to "crushing" or "breaking".
In some cultures, a Nachtmahr usually appears as a female figure, being capable of shapeshifting though, stealing children and stuff, or bringing desease, possessing people during the sleep and what not - at any rate, that root would basically mean that a hag/nighthag actually could be considered an adaption of the Nachtmahr creature.
The horse-interpretation is related to norse mythology, but I think it was rather something along the lines when Odin was laying down to sleep, his body would rest, but his spirit would soar the land in the form of a horse, notably, or any other animal.
Later on, I guess this was then associated with a Nachtmahr being a bringer of bad dreams, in the form of a rider or just a horse.
(Edit: I think the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, for instance, are a good iconic example. In medieval christian Europe, the interpretation of nightmares being brought by a horse or through a fiendish horse seems logical, both because the norse and related sachsischen mythologies were considered heretical/peagan, thus bad, and second messanges, or practically anything adressed to just a single person was delivered by a horseman.
The Alb/Elf sitting on someone's chest as a watcher/seeder of dreams indeed appears in german mythology as well, but like I said, the terms for elves are very widespread and basically can refer to any humanoid fantasy, from pixies to fey to tolkinesque elves.
Funny thing: The article on the issue found in wikipedia also points out that "acting as a 'mahr'", e.g. "riding"/"sitting" on a "sleeping" man/stranger (or any of his housemates) during nightime was an outrage and a punishable crime. Fear the innuendo.
Another case states that "being a nightmahr" was referred to a (jealous) wife/woman who murdered another person during his sleep by suffocation. (Huh. So, can we conclude that if in some fantasy setting, a character would say "Don't dwarf so much!" he might want to tell you "Don't drink all the beer!"? Well, I guess tales and such often found their way into speech about more mundane and wordly happenings before.)
In any case, the Nachtmahr, Alp or whatever you call it is the, hm, "actor" of a nightmare, the creature enducing a nightmare, or appearing in/with it.
A hag might use a nightmare's bond to enter a dreamscape or something of sorts.
Hope that was somehow helpful.
(Hm, a Nightmare might actually be a transcended/spiritualized or undead "evolution phase" of a hag? Brainstorming, whee. Hm. Well, no, fiend. Beh)
EDIT:
Hm, okay, I'm new here, and didn't sign up for anything (hello by the way), whatsoever, but here's a random thought:
So, it says about Hags in the Encyclopaedia that Night Hags enter dreams to create additional larvae. So they can enter dreams and stuff. Alright.
What about their own dreams? Hm. Maybe a night hag's spirit is actually bound to a layer of the Gloom, while it can travel, I cannot create a dreamscape of its own.
But, maybe, a hags powers (and related items and spells) are at their fullest while in a dreamscape. So... maybe it would be a goal for a hag or another to actually receive and shape their own dreamscape.
And maybe some of the stuff hags do revolve around ancient, forgotten knowledge on manipulating the Realm of Dreams, or converting something actually different or not in connection with the realm of dreams into a dreamscape, or rather, a nightmare-scape.
Whatever.
I can't help myself but notice I'm not really that sophisticated there, hm. I'll get back to it once I'm done looking various things up and getting a little more apt at the matter.
Welcome, Remainaery! Good stuff; it seems you'll be a well-informed addition to the project.
Hi Jem, thanks for the welcome.
Well, for the moment it seems more like random wise-assing, but I promise I'll try to get some constructive contribution together next time, once I catch up on the background material (at least this gives me reason to polish up my english again, heh. getting rusty)
It just struck me by accident rather, since Eldan was referring to german language, so as (another?) first-hander I couldn't keep my mouth should but to dwell further on that. (Uh-oh, it turned into a ranting about everything, anything and nothing you ever and never wanted to know, heh).
Anyway, I promise to do my homework on Planescape in general and maybe actually work with you guys on this thing, since now I read the whole topic, this sounds promising.
And it seems I have been out-mythology'd by miles.
Well, anyway, nice to see some more german speaking people here, I think you are number three then. And yes, I'm swiss, so (some weird kind of not-really-)german would be my first language. I guess I should actually read some german mythology sometime.
So there might actual difference betveen "dream spawned" larvae and larvae that are petitioners.
Hmm... maybe those "dream spawned" larvae are ones that transform into hordelings, nightmarish monsters given shape and form, taken from something ephemeral like bad dream and made permanent to plague the multiverse. In turn hordelings create more bad dreams in minds of survivors which hags than harvest.
Here is one more idea for pic: hordelings in their multitude od forms and shapes remind me of those nameles demons and devils (akuma) from eastern (namely Japanese) traditional art, where all those monsters swarm around clawing and screaming, and no one looks alike.
So idea is to make picture in that japanese stlye: night hag in kimono or other traditional outfit, orders hodelings to attack samurai.
Trouble is: I have never imitated this style so I´m just giving idea.
P.S. Welcome, Remainaery, and thanks for inspiration.
I thought other people agreed with the claim that hags only risk attacking people in their dreams to get larvae they can sell as good fiend candidates. A look at their encyclopedia entry confirms I didn't imagine this. I like that picture idea, by the way.
I think faces of evil.(although I'll have to double check) talks about hags as being such dangerous bargeners to deal with. Being larvae merchants they probably harvest some through dream if supplies are low and maybe for instant macabre satifaction and pleasure. They are some what persistent if they are stolen from or cheated in some way. Similar to a Gehreleths triangle fixation. Also isn't a hag mentioned by Annah in Planescape: Torment when she is telling her tale to Yves Tale Chaser. I think a night hag was involved in that I'm not sure.
With the information I've gathered on hordelings I know that they are what happens to the souls of particuly powerful neutral evil petitioners when they die. Although thought that the 'Loths are the product of this if you know your fiends, they are the raw essence of evil from the grey waste given sentience and form, this makes them more dangerous than a demon or devil as they are tied to the plane, an animus like the modrons, if one is killed it simply is reformed back on the waste
I think the only difference is that a hag can take direct possession of the soul of a person killed in this way; in 2e, their dream-riding only worked on neutral evil persons, so that soul was headed for the general direction of the Waste regardless. Killing by dream-haunting (or, apparently, by strangling a NE mortal put to sleep by the hag) produces the larva instantly, nearby, in the hag's possession, thus enriching her personally.
In 3e, the hag's sleep spell works on anyone, though the SRD entry doesn't mention the creation of larvae. Oddly enough, the 3e dream-haunting apparently also works on chaotic individuals; I doubt a larva would be created in such a case, if the soul's natural afterlife were somewhere other than the Waste (though perhaps not, and it would need rescuing).
Sorry for my recent silence, I've had lots of job & family stress (nothing serious, just - much). I'll continue with the guidelines and an outline of the first project in the next few days!
Hooray!
One-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people eater says: "Monsters are nature's way for keeping XPs fresh."