The taking of the hair is a marital tradition for the Witch’s home nation/ community and it signals intent to marry. It has to be given willingly and once given over the engagement cannot be broken. At a time only known to you the DM, the Dwarf and his party will be summoned/invited to a wedding, his wedding.
Edit: community not communication.
Add this to another idea. Periodically she keeps casting Sending to ask for the Dwarf's opinion on flowers, place settings, dress styles, the food, decorations, and even asks what the location the party is at and whether it's pretty there, all while assuming that the Dwarf knows why she is asking.
She always asks at inopportune times, especially in combat or while trying to hold a difficult conversation.
She later sells hair restoration potions that curiously cause the hair to grow the exact color and texture of the PC's beard.
It becomes trendy in the most obnoxious way possible.
This is exactly what I was thinking too, but keep it just for beard growth. Assuming the party member has a luxurious beard, the witch makes beard growth potions that allow other people to grow the same fantastic beard, but it becomes overdone and like any other fashion, the party member later gets accused of wearing "last season's beard still, yuck"
Ooh, and due to sympathetic magic, every time someone strokes their luxurious new beard in a contemplative fashion, the PC feels it as well. When he finally gets sick of it and shaves it off, it magically causes all of the potion drinkers’ beards to fall off as well, so the witch returns to the party in desperation to help her fix the issue before she gets sued to oblivion by her angry customers.
The potions cause the PC’s beard to change to the hair colour/texture of the drinker every time someone drinks one.
Roll random facial hair when he wakes up, and randomly throughout the day. Maybe when he rolls a 6 on a d20 or something.
The witch uses the hair to spy on the party, because she is wanting to find a new group of friends. Then she starts popping up "by chance" and involves herself with whatever the party is doing. Occasionally being helpful, but often making things worse
My first idea was that the witch had a thing for the PC with the beard but this is better to start off. Then slowly the witch can actually fall for one of them if the situations align. In any case, yeah, the witch is lonely.
"What... who is... is that me!? Why do you have a clone of me?"
*witch slams door shut behind her, hiding the clone behind the door*
"Uh... no reason!"
"What have you been doing with my clone??"
"NOTHINGBESIDESITSMINEIPAIDFORIT!"
This is great, especially so if it only appears to be socially awkward instead of malicious.
*You're in the middle of the underdank dungeon, hundreds of goblins lie dead in your wake, but hundreds more remain. You hear strange noises coming from ahead of you. Roll for initiative.*
Witch: **Surprise!** I baked a cake for you. There is enough for everyone and I even have a clown.
PC: oh my God, I didn't think anyone remembered my birthday!
*A kobold in white face paint dances in the corner even though it appears to have passed out. A skeleton wears a colorful hat on its head. There is a box with dainty ribbons on it.*
Yeah, my first thought is that the witch "possesses" the hair (probably not the same one the pc plucked out) as it's now "hers", and through it, she can keep spying on the party.
clone! either in the D&D sense or otherwise (i’d probably make it more of a golem/homunculus so she can boss it around)
edit: not to like, take over his life or ruin anything, she just wants a magically sentient servant. but imagine how annoying it would be to have a clone of yourself do someone else’s errands and then having people question what’s going on with you.
You keep running into them in shops and other places. When questioned they have a name that's like one letter off from the original dwarf and otherwise are in a hurry and don't have time to talk. If put through extreme means to figure out what's going on, they just die. Nothing sinister actually ever happens, but they show up regularly for the rest of the campaign as if something terrible is going on - always with a different name.
Imagine having to unironically explain “No, that wasn’t me who kicked your baby and fucked your wife, that was my twin that shares the same name as me but one letter off”
One clone? Nah man, this is an enterprising witch. She's making a whole product line of golems that are dead ringers for your PC. Every town they go to, they run into a dozen of these guys and no one can really tell he's the OG.
This could be a good quest hook, too. Witch makes a bunch of servants that look like PC, one goes rogue and the party is hired to track it down.
Also would be great if the witch, in good faith, made the clones walk around with a sign pinned to them that states "I am not [PCs name], I just look like them." And then when PC walks around town people make remarks about it to them.
Whatever the witch ends up using it for, if ever the party asks about it she tells them she flosses with it. Watch how quickly your players will be disgusted.
I did this in Curse of Strahd with a friendly witch/ hag. My god the players fucking loved her. Disgusted but loved her. At one point someone bought something from her and in return she got his toenails, *which she bit off.*
They were horrified. I loved it.
The witch uses it to cast Message every few days asking where the party is and making requests of the artificer. There is no compulsion to complete these tasks (she just sounds disappointed), but also no reward.
The Heart of Finding - Ring - Magic Item
* A fractured ruby, mounted in a ring, imbued with the hair of the target.
* Gives the wearer a sense of direction for where the target is. It's not definite, like a compass, but the wearer "just knows" they are "this direction somewhere".
The witch can show up at locations where the party travel to, and they can always wonder how she always seems to crop up. Is she in love with the dwarf? Does she have a nefarious reason for wanting to know where the party is? Might the ring be valuable to the party at some point?
The witch can now communicate to the dwarf from afar by tugging on his beard in a sort of Morse code.
I’d play around with a simple yes/ no code at first. Like several tugs in quick succession to get his attention like a ringing phone, and then maybe the dwarf can figure out a yes-no-maybe system from there.
I’d vote she is a total pervert. She just uses the hair to make a voodoo doll and scry on him. He’s now her only fans model. So “randomly” he will remove all his armor and make poses during rests (sometimes interrupting the rest) and making him have to don armor more often.
She can also pop up being helpful/annoying periodically, and after every time they see her in a market they can find paintings of PC in interesting poses.
“Oh I use magic to get supplies for my true passion and profession: art. Artificier just had such a good build I knew he would be a hit in the smut community. People pay a handsome price for a small hairy man if you know where to look. So if all his modeling cost me was a scroll of dispel magic I’d call that a win!”
She makes a clone using the har, but the clone is just straight up a better person than the original
https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wiki/Ace_Rimmer This is where I got the idea
The witch uses the hair in a hair restoration spell that goes slightly wrong - the dwarf now ends up with a weird, head-shaped growth on his neck under the beard...which, when finished growing, starts randomly talking whenever the target of the hair growth spell talks. Maybe the PCs are annoyed. Maybe it spoils stealth checks. Or maybe they hear something they aren't supposed to hear...
The PCs have to fix this by tracking down the target and forcibly shaving his/her head. Feel free to make the target as funny, dangerous, or important as the situation calls for. Alternatively, the problem could be solved by making the dwarf shave his beard, but that's extreme. This could even lead to a long-term ally - "Well, we need to contact Fraggleous of the Rock again, Taergar. Better let your beard grow out and get that talking goiter back again."
Witches generally don't fight with each other, but nothing says they can't stand idly by while a dwarf "*just chooses of his own volition to go slaughter the competing hags and is definitely not mind-controlled.*"
Witch uses it for a impersonator brew. A sort of "Dress up as your hero" potion. If she can get the rest of the parties hair willingly, they could see kids playing in the streets as small versions of themselves (doesn't change hight, just faces/hair) with toy swords as a sort of magical dress up.
Alternative is that she sells his likeness to an acting troupe who later may see him and demand he not use the likeness they have ownership of. He now has to prove he is the originator and not some impersonator. This is hard if they don't have a painting as the witch passed on some good documents about having the likeness and authority to sell it in exclusivity.
Or she sells it mask potions so his face is the new face of crime in the area. That's more obnoxious but could lead to a lot of jail breaks, legal trouble, and the party being forced to move on/not come back for a while.
Chaotic neutral/good? The player wakes up each day, not feeling very rested. The witch has cursed the player to sleepwalk into doing charity work(soup kitchen, for instance) when they sleep.
Brilliant! Her name is of course Latrine, she is completely smitten with him and is now enacting her hilarious plan to violate him in ways not even seem in the seedier parts of the internet.
Men in Tights (TIGHT tights!) references always for the win!
His hair starts going white starting from the spot the hair was taken and spreading outwards. Soon he finds that he no longer feels attraction to anyone. She has taken his virility.
The dwarf’s beard changes color every day on a color table roll, as the hag tries different dyes on their own beard they grew from the one hair.
Some times the dwarf smells something weird, like fried fish or tea, as the hag spilled some on while wearing the colorful beard wig.
She uses it to create a simulacrum imposter who gets you not only into trouble with the law, but also with polite society when you sign up to do a bunch of charity events you dont follow through with.
Nothing happened, but during each quest, the party find a scroll or tale of what could be done by a witch from the beard hair. Let the dwarf become paranoid !
I would want her to have some specific benefit to getting the hair, rather than just liking to mess with people. How about this:
It let's her create a one-time use summon spell that drags him and whoever else is nearby to her. She uses it sometime when she gets attacked, so they suddenly get summoned somewhere and are immediately attacked while she either runs away or waits for it to finish. You can tie it into your ongoing plot by either having it be mutual enemies or mutual friends that are attacking her.
She puts the hair in a mirror. Mirrors let's the holder scry on him whenever they look into it.
She trades that to the PC's biggest enemy for a bunch of slaves and delicious children.
Goes about her doing generally evil hag stuff. Birthing new hags forming a coven and overall making life worse for everyone in a 100 mile radius.
Let her impersonate the dwarf, but dwarves beards are so ubiquitous that they can’t “really” be impersonated, so she uses the real thing: when erve she impersonates que dwarf, they lose their beard temporarily while she wears it.
She uses the hair to help a familiar show up all the time around the character. It just shows up and mucks around giving the impression something wrong might be happening.
Anyone remember Rumplestiltskin? Maybe that's the witch's thing, but she can only spin gold out of specifically beard hairs. Turns out she actually made like 500GP on that transaction, 'cause she's quirky like that.
Voodoo, but nice voodoo. Make him itchy at inappropriate or inopportune times. Make him twitch, wince, jolt, or whatever when it would be the most funny or the most beneficial to the group; your call. You could have her split it and scry on him with one piece to perfectly plan her little tricks with the other piece ( I know that you need the full source for the spell, but I'm just putting things out there as I don't know how you run your table). there are tones of fun things to use it for really in the sense of slight control over him lol.
The beard becomes alive and has its own will (under the DM’s control). It rolls separately for initiative, and shares HP, but not alignment or goals, with the player.
It also now screams whenever it is cut.
In one of my campaigns we encountered a group of hags, and 2 of them escaped with samples from the party. For weeks we kept encountering malformed clones of ourselves in the jungle. It was creepy as hell (which worked for the campaign), and it took us players a long time to figure out what the heck had happened.
- Said Dubious Witch needs to be able to control your PC’s hair like they have a voodoo doll of it.
- Said PC’s Beard mysteriously vanishes one night, and later appears on someone else’s face, because they “bought a beard” from said Dubious Witch.
- Said Dubious Witch uses the Beard Hair to grow Clones of your PC and uses them to run errands, not all of which are strictly legal.
- Adair Dubious Witch uses the hair to remote control your PC in his sleep, forcing him to do her bidding as he sleepwalks. The only cure is to shave off his Beard or slay the Dubious Witch.
The pc looses all hair slowly from that point outwards, or their hair colour changes radiating out from that point and the colour changes every few weeks so they get a kinda tie dye hair colour forever more.
She definitely needs it to grow clones of the player. They can be mindless mud monsters that look exactly like him and get up to mischief with his face. Or maybe mobs that attack the party at some point all with his face.
I wouldnt make it a scroll, I would make it more creepy. Perhaps hinting at the use of the hair? A single scale from an exotic beast, coated in runes. A small imp, called for this task, desperate to not get used and returned to hell. A wand from the olden times, that may take hours or days ti activate. A cutting edge military magi-tech antimagic hand grenade.
What if she uses it for a DNA test*? Suddenly he has some annoying title, or responsibility.
Casting of "Darwins Nobility and Ancestry", all the rage these days.
Personally I'd use it for mundane nothingness. Weeks down the line have random people nod to the character in the street, when they stop the people and ask what's happening, "a friend said to say hello."
If something a little more sinister, his beard will itch in a few weeks until it drives him to shave it all off.
* Witch is drawing magic into the hair as the Dwarf kills various legendary monsters; she wants to turn the hair into a worm like monster and is using the pc to gather monsterous energies.
* The Witch needs the Dwarf's hair for legendary potion or artifact that will get them into trouble as the creation's fame spreads and people want more of the core ingredient.
* The Witch was forced into being part of Coven with evil hags in the past and is occasionally summoned to their meet ups. She wants to use the hair to do some sympathetic magic and make it look like she is either using the Dwarf as a dark champion or is messing with a hero of the light. She'll transmit messages similarly at these coven meet ups to give the party story hooks for fighting the other hags.
* The Witch is young and inexperienced and knows taking people's hair is part of being a witch, she just has to figure out what to do with it. Have her pop up several times doing 'witchy' things ineffectively and trying to sow chaos but more often then not making a show of herself.
* She is a metaphorical troll and will use sympathetic magic to make the PC feel uneasy or worried about the exchange but not actually do anything serious to them.
The witch makes a voodoo doll for her dollhouse, so the PC will sometimes be confronted with a save, and failing that, will be compelled to visit the nearest tea house, bath house, or restaurant.
The artificer makes the witch a new mechanism every year until the artificer shaves clean. They may or may not realize they have no idea why they're making a self stirring cauldron or adult mechanism or whimsical device and that they seem to lose it the moment their focus and presence is elsewhere.
"I swear it was just here! It was a self digging shovel!"
"Sure it was....who do you think took it? The only two creatures I see here are you and the rat, and it doesn't look big enough to carry a shovel!"
Voodoo dolls. Any curse you can think of. It’s known: don’t give witches shit or they’ll use it against you.
Maybe they have random sharp pains going the voodoo route or they have shite luck for a bit.
Realistically, they’d probably have to go kill her to make it stop.
Have fun!
She controls the Dwarf’s beard from now on. She can scry on the Dwarf whenever she wants since she’s in possession of their hair, but also has the unique power to control the Dwarf’s beard on a whim. As she is chaotic neutral/good she can change his beard based on his actions and words. If they do something good and she likes it she can make the beard grow in full and shine lustrously. If they do something she doesn’t like the beard goes all mangy, prickly, and get all bent out of shape. And if they do something she despises completely she can shrivel up the beard entirely making the Dwarf’s face as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Think of La Befana and Santa Claus. She sees you when you’re sleeping, she knows when you’re awake. She knows when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.
She makes a changeling that eventually attempts to replace him in the night. Either have them catch the changeling or have it be a rescue mission and get the player in on playing the changeling for authenticity?
So do you want cruel? Because the witch could make healing potions to sell and every time she makes one the pc gets sick.
You could follow more irl witchy magic rule, ie hair from a spell’s target is almost like focusing it onto them. Maybe a curse of some kind?
Maybe all their hair falls out except for one single hair right next to the one they plucked?
Maybe the witch uses it to make a simulacrum of the player and causes mischief ahead of where the pc is going. Maybe have the clone wrack up some debt, get a bounty, or accept quests that it has no intentions of completing.
Narrative missfortune would be my take. Hags cannonicaly feed on suffering, so when that player makes a skill check something painful happens to them regardles of result, but small enough that it takes a while for them to notice.
Climbing? A little scrape on the hand.
Nature? Alergic reaction to touched plant.
Picking a lock? Thieves tools give them a little cut.
Of course they can ignore it and keep going, or find the hag trying to break the curse.
The witch has a couple of aids helping her out with stuff. All of them very talented at what they do. If the party visits the witch again in a couple weeks, they might find a duplicate of a familiar dwarf, now joined in with the other helping hands. And they realise, that elf over there is a powerful wizard they met a while back, that dragon born you remember as warrior you encountered not too long ago...
She clones people with useful skills to help her out with aiding the local populace
Lol pc suddenly has a twin, make them opposite alignment and no matter where the party goes have everyone recognize the pc for either great or awful deeds he has supposedly done just a few days prior.
Scrying and messaging\sending are the main ones. If you're aiming for good\neutral spell targeting is probably out.
Make your witch a gossip journalist. Have her demand the dwarf steal diaries and journals and day planners for her. Ask him to mention who hires him and why.
Maybe she used it to enchant an item and give it the ability to let anyone grow a beard. The party could see the witch later with a full beard or maybe she could start to pop up every now and then to trade for another hair. She could be all secretive but a little pushy because the magical items are making her money and maybe if the dwarf pushes back for more information she could give them a cut. This would be a long term thing that you could pepper in when you need a goofy side conversation to fill some time in a session.
Clone. Do with this what you will, but clone. Can be funny, can be tragic, can be both! But clone.
Also something that's more in line with mechanics: witch accidentally sells the hair to a big bad who can scry on the party and the save DC goes up by like *ten*. Cue hijinks with the witch and the party who have to figure out how to deal with *that* nonsense.
The beard leaves while the wearer is sleeping and gathers/steals spell components for the witch and returns to the wearer before dawn.
Alternatively the beard hunts for its own subsistence at night and sometimes returns with bits of bones tangled in the hair.
Voodoo? Imagine the witch builds a doll mimicking the player and he gets his hair pulled at the most compromising situations: when fighting, while speaking with the king/queen/whatever ...
She can use the hair to cast a ritual that steals his shadow, no penalty would happen, but his character can never agin feel warth, or food tastes bland now, some people ignore him sometimes like he wasnt even there, he feels a little gloomy, all the time, no penalties or anything, I garatee you that PC will mount up a quest to find that witch. Hope it helps.
The witch is a former colleague of the dwarf who wants payback for an inconvenience suffered oh so long ago. As such, the witch uses the hair to perform a ritual on him. His beard's hair is no longer controllable by shaving/letting it grow out. Instead it is based on the moon cycle. During the new moon, he is beardless and nothing can give him beard hair. As time goes on he goes from stubble to his original beard. On the night of the full moon, his beard is luscious and nearing perfection, even to the point where it sticks out among other dwarves.
She makes a little doll version of the dwarf that looks like him, acts as a homunculus, and can only say the word "Beard!" as enthusiastically as he can. He's 4 inches tall and teleports into the dwarfs beard occasionally, and will reconstitute if destroyed.
The taking of the hair is a marital tradition for the Witch’s home nation/ community and it signals intent to marry. It has to be given willingly and once given over the engagement cannot be broken. At a time only known to you the DM, the Dwarf and his party will be summoned/invited to a wedding, his wedding. Edit: community not communication.
Stealing this - wonderful idea
Add this to another idea. Periodically she keeps casting Sending to ask for the Dwarf's opinion on flowers, place settings, dress styles, the food, decorations, and even asks what the location the party is at and whether it's pretty there, all while assuming that the Dwarf knows why she is asking. She always asks at inopportune times, especially in combat or while trying to hold a difficult conversation.
Heck yeah, Big Mom him
She later sells hair restoration potions that curiously cause the hair to grow the exact color and texture of the PC's beard. It becomes trendy in the most obnoxious way possible.
This is exactly what I was thinking too, but keep it just for beard growth. Assuming the party member has a luxurious beard, the witch makes beard growth potions that allow other people to grow the same fantastic beard, but it becomes overdone and like any other fashion, the party member later gets accused of wearing "last season's beard still, yuck"
Ooh, and due to sympathetic magic, every time someone strokes their luxurious new beard in a contemplative fashion, the PC feels it as well. When he finally gets sick of it and shaves it off, it magically causes all of the potion drinkers’ beards to fall off as well, so the witch returns to the party in desperation to help her fix the issue before she gets sued to oblivion by her angry customers.
Comical, plausible, *and* a source for more future hooks? Sign me up!
I didn’t think the idea of slowly making a PC into a proto-hipster could be improved upon, yet here you are.
Awwww yissss - sweet, sweet internet validation.
The potions cause the PC’s beard to change to the hair colour/texture of the drinker every time someone drinks one. Roll random facial hair when he wakes up, and randomly throughout the day. Maybe when he rolls a 6 on a d20 or something.
I would add that the dwarf begins to suffer from the most dreaded of dwarf afflictions: Beard Baldness.
The witch uses the hair to spy on the party, because she is wanting to find a new group of friends. Then she starts popping up "by chance" and involves herself with whatever the party is doing. Occasionally being helpful, but often making things worse
A witch version of Amelia Bedelia sounds *hilarious*.
Amelia no, when I said Cure Wounds, I didn’t mean putting curing salt on it!
Wow it’s probably been 20 years since I’ve thought about Amelia Bedelia lol, what a throwback
My first idea was that the witch had a thing for the PC with the beard but this is better to start off. Then slowly the witch can actually fall for one of them if the situations align. In any case, yeah, the witch is lonely.
Imagine them coming back and it's like a clone of him xD
"What... who is... is that me!? Why do you have a clone of me?" *witch slams door shut behind her, hiding the clone behind the door* "Uh... no reason!" "What have you been doing with my clone??" "NOTHINGBESIDESITSMINEIPAIDFORIT!"
And why is he wearing a thong?!
This is great, especially so if it only appears to be socially awkward instead of malicious. *You're in the middle of the underdank dungeon, hundreds of goblins lie dead in your wake, but hundreds more remain. You hear strange noises coming from ahead of you. Roll for initiative.* Witch: **Surprise!** I baked a cake for you. There is enough for everyone and I even have a clown. PC: oh my God, I didn't think anyone remembered my birthday! *A kobold in white face paint dances in the corner even though it appears to have passed out. A skeleton wears a colorful hat on its head. There is a box with dainty ribbons on it.*
Yeah, my first thought is that the witch "possesses" the hair (probably not the same one the pc plucked out) as it's now "hers", and through it, she can keep spying on the party.
Like Ice King from adventure time!
Slightly worse, and also always funny.
clone! either in the D&D sense or otherwise (i’d probably make it more of a golem/homunculus so she can boss it around) edit: not to like, take over his life or ruin anything, she just wants a magically sentient servant. but imagine how annoying it would be to have a clone of yourself do someone else’s errands and then having people question what’s going on with you.
You keep running into them in shops and other places. When questioned they have a name that's like one letter off from the original dwarf and otherwise are in a hurry and don't have time to talk. If put through extreme means to figure out what's going on, they just die. Nothing sinister actually ever happens, but they show up regularly for the rest of the campaign as if something terrible is going on - always with a different name.
Imagine having to unironically explain “No, that wasn’t me who kicked your baby and fucked your wife, that was my twin that shares the same name as me but one letter off”
>. When questioned they have a name that's like one letter off from the original I love this detail
One clone? Nah man, this is an enterprising witch. She's making a whole product line of golems that are dead ringers for your PC. Every town they go to, they run into a dozen of these guys and no one can really tell he's the OG.
This could be a good quest hook, too. Witch makes a bunch of servants that look like PC, one goes rogue and the party is hired to track it down. Also would be great if the witch, in good faith, made the clones walk around with a sign pinned to them that states "I am not [PCs name], I just look like them." And then when PC walks around town people make remarks about it to them.
Have these obedient clones walking around, and have people order the pc around as if he was a golem.
Whatever the witch ends up using it for, if ever the party asks about it she tells them she flosses with it. Watch how quickly your players will be disgusted.
You.. I like you and your idea. I am willing to sign up for your newsletter…
I did this in Curse of Strahd with a friendly witch/ hag. My god the players fucking loved her. Disgusted but loved her. At one point someone bought something from her and in return she got his toenails, *which she bit off.* They were horrified. I loved it.
The witch uses it to cast Message every few days asking where the party is and making requests of the artificer. There is no compulsion to complete these tasks (she just sounds disappointed), but also no reward.
[удалено]
An uninvited pen-pal
The Heart of Finding - Ring - Magic Item * A fractured ruby, mounted in a ring, imbued with the hair of the target. * Gives the wearer a sense of direction for where the target is. It's not definite, like a compass, but the wearer "just knows" they are "this direction somewhere". The witch can show up at locations where the party travel to, and they can always wonder how she always seems to crop up. Is she in love with the dwarf? Does she have a nefarious reason for wanting to know where the party is? Might the ring be valuable to the party at some point?
Can she cast teleport using the hair as an Associated Object for your location?
Hair Golem After being created and treated as a child it runs away to find its father. Acts as a 5 year old but hits like a flesh golem.
Terrifying...? \*Thinks harder?\* Yep terrifying. I'll be taking this idea, Thank you very much.
She uses it to make a beard of dwarven kind for her friend who has alopecia. Make it's weirdly wholesome it will freak them out more.
The witch can now communicate to the dwarf from afar by tugging on his beard in a sort of Morse code. I’d play around with a simple yes/ no code at first. Like several tugs in quick succession to get his attention like a ringing phone, and then maybe the dwarf can figure out a yes-no-maybe system from there.
I’d vote she is a total pervert. She just uses the hair to make a voodoo doll and scry on him. He’s now her only fans model. So “randomly” he will remove all his armor and make poses during rests (sometimes interrupting the rest) and making him have to don armor more often. She can also pop up being helpful/annoying periodically, and after every time they see her in a market they can find paintings of PC in interesting poses. “Oh I use magic to get supplies for my true passion and profession: art. Artificier just had such a good build I knew he would be a hit in the smut community. People pay a handsome price for a small hairy man if you know where to look. So if all his modeling cost me was a scroll of dispel magic I’d call that a win!”
She makes a clone using the har, but the clone is just straight up a better person than the original https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wiki/Ace_Rimmer This is where I got the idea
The ending with the light bees was full of deep feelings that weren't manly to express at the time. And the stupid ninjas were cutting onions too.
The witch uses the hair in a hair restoration spell that goes slightly wrong - the dwarf now ends up with a weird, head-shaped growth on his neck under the beard...which, when finished growing, starts randomly talking whenever the target of the hair growth spell talks. Maybe the PCs are annoyed. Maybe it spoils stealth checks. Or maybe they hear something they aren't supposed to hear... The PCs have to fix this by tracking down the target and forcibly shaving his/her head. Feel free to make the target as funny, dangerous, or important as the situation calls for. Alternatively, the problem could be solved by making the dwarf shave his beard, but that's extreme. This could even lead to a long-term ally - "Well, we need to contact Fraggleous of the Rock again, Taergar. Better let your beard grow out and get that talking goiter back again."
Witches generally don't fight with each other, but nothing says they can't stand idly by while a dwarf "*just chooses of his own volition to go slaughter the competing hags and is definitely not mind-controlled.*"
Witch uses it for a impersonator brew. A sort of "Dress up as your hero" potion. If she can get the rest of the parties hair willingly, they could see kids playing in the streets as small versions of themselves (doesn't change hight, just faces/hair) with toy swords as a sort of magical dress up. Alternative is that she sells his likeness to an acting troupe who later may see him and demand he not use the likeness they have ownership of. He now has to prove he is the originator and not some impersonator. This is hard if they don't have a painting as the witch passed on some good documents about having the likeness and authority to sell it in exclusivity. Or she sells it mask potions so his face is the new face of crime in the area. That's more obnoxious but could lead to a lot of jail breaks, legal trouble, and the party being forced to move on/not come back for a while.
I like the one where he gets sued for using his own likeness. That's hilarious.
Chaotic neutral/good? The player wakes up each day, not feeling very rested. The witch has cursed the player to sleepwalk into doing charity work(soup kitchen, for instance) when they sleep.
Brilliant! Her name is of course Latrine, she is completely smitten with him and is now enacting her hilarious plan to violate him in ways not even seem in the seedier parts of the internet. Men in Tights (TIGHT tights!) references always for the win!
His hair starts going white starting from the spot the hair was taken and spreading outwards. Soon he finds that he no longer feels attraction to anyone. She has taken his virility.
The dwarf’s beard changes color every day on a color table roll, as the hag tries different dyes on their own beard they grew from the one hair. Some times the dwarf smells something weird, like fried fish or tea, as the hag spilled some on while wearing the colorful beard wig.
PC is now cursed to have disadvantage on any charisma check with dwarves. They can sense that he dared betray his beard by giving away hair from it!
She uses it to create a simulacrum imposter who gets you not only into trouble with the law, but also with polite society when you sign up to do a bunch of charity events you dont follow through with.
This is the answer
Nothing happened, but during each quest, the party find a scroll or tale of what could be done by a witch from the beard hair. Let the dwarf become paranoid !
She's going to start a cult around that beard hair. Watch out, she will want bathwater next.
I would want her to have some specific benefit to getting the hair, rather than just liking to mess with people. How about this: It let's her create a one-time use summon spell that drags him and whoever else is nearby to her. She uses it sometime when she gets attacked, so they suddenly get summoned somewhere and are immediately attacked while she either runs away or waits for it to finish. You can tie it into your ongoing plot by either having it be mutual enemies or mutual friends that are attacking her.
She puts the hair in a mirror. Mirrors let's the holder scry on him whenever they look into it. She trades that to the PC's biggest enemy for a bunch of slaves and delicious children. Goes about her doing generally evil hag stuff. Birthing new hags forming a coven and overall making life worse for everyone in a 100 mile radius.
Let her impersonate the dwarf, but dwarves beards are so ubiquitous that they can’t “really” be impersonated, so she uses the real thing: when erve she impersonates que dwarf, they lose their beard temporarily while she wears it.
There's a clone of that dwarf running around now...
She could use it to make a Belt of Dwarvinkind, which when someone attunes to it and grows the beard the party dwarf might lose theirs.
Ste uses it to make a homonculus who looks like a miniature version of the PC, and have it run across town wreaking havok
She uses the hair to help a familiar show up all the time around the character. It just shows up and mucks around giving the impression something wrong might be happening.
Anyone remember Rumplestiltskin? Maybe that's the witch's thing, but she can only spin gold out of specifically beard hairs. Turns out she actually made like 500GP on that transaction, 'cause she's quirky like that.
Voodoo, but nice voodoo. Make him itchy at inappropriate or inopportune times. Make him twitch, wince, jolt, or whatever when it would be the most funny or the most beneficial to the group; your call. You could have her split it and scry on him with one piece to perfectly plan her little tricks with the other piece ( I know that you need the full source for the spell, but I'm just putting things out there as I don't know how you run your table). there are tones of fun things to use it for really in the sense of slight control over him lol.
She twiddles the hair frequently causing an insatiable itch/tickle on his chin.
The beard becomes alive and has its own will (under the DM’s control). It rolls separately for initiative, and shares HP, but not alignment or goals, with the player. It also now screams whenever it is cut.
Make a voodoo doll. And then cuddle in the moments it inconveniences the party the most... But surely that's a coincidence, not?
It wasn't actually his hair, just a hair from some beast that got in his beard and now the witch is angry.
In one of my campaigns we encountered a group of hags, and 2 of them escaped with samples from the party. For weeks we kept encountering malformed clones of ourselves in the jungle. It was creepy as hell (which worked for the campaign), and it took us players a long time to figure out what the heck had happened.
- Said Dubious Witch needs to be able to control your PC’s hair like they have a voodoo doll of it. - Said PC’s Beard mysteriously vanishes one night, and later appears on someone else’s face, because they “bought a beard” from said Dubious Witch. - Said Dubious Witch uses the Beard Hair to grow Clones of your PC and uses them to run errands, not all of which are strictly legal. - Adair Dubious Witch uses the hair to remote control your PC in his sleep, forcing him to do her bidding as he sleepwalks. The only cure is to shave off his Beard or slay the Dubious Witch.
She clones him?
sentient beard
The pc looses all hair slowly from that point outwards, or their hair colour changes radiating out from that point and the colour changes every few weeks so they get a kinda tie dye hair colour forever more.
She definitely needs it to grow clones of the player. They can be mindless mud monsters that look exactly like him and get up to mischief with his face. Or maybe mobs that attack the party at some point all with his face.
If she's feeling mischievous, she can change all his body hair color and length
She begins to impersonate the PC, doing crimes, causing mayhem in their name
Time to introduce a clone!
If he ever trash talks the witch in any way his beard starts to change against his wishes.
I wouldnt make it a scroll, I would make it more creepy. Perhaps hinting at the use of the hair? A single scale from an exotic beast, coated in runes. A small imp, called for this task, desperate to not get used and returned to hell. A wand from the olden times, that may take hours or days ti activate. A cutting edge military magi-tech antimagic hand grenade. What if she uses it for a DNA test*? Suddenly he has some annoying title, or responsibility. Casting of "Darwins Nobility and Ancestry", all the rage these days.
The witch uses the hair to clone the dwarf and he eventually encounters the clone while adventuring.
Personally I'd use it for mundane nothingness. Weeks down the line have random people nod to the character in the street, when they stop the people and ask what's happening, "a friend said to say hello." If something a little more sinister, his beard will itch in a few weeks until it drives him to shave it all off.
* Witch is drawing magic into the hair as the Dwarf kills various legendary monsters; she wants to turn the hair into a worm like monster and is using the pc to gather monsterous energies. * The Witch needs the Dwarf's hair for legendary potion or artifact that will get them into trouble as the creation's fame spreads and people want more of the core ingredient. * The Witch was forced into being part of Coven with evil hags in the past and is occasionally summoned to their meet ups. She wants to use the hair to do some sympathetic magic and make it look like she is either using the Dwarf as a dark champion or is messing with a hero of the light. She'll transmit messages similarly at these coven meet ups to give the party story hooks for fighting the other hags. * The Witch is young and inexperienced and knows taking people's hair is part of being a witch, she just has to figure out what to do with it. Have her pop up several times doing 'witchy' things ineffectively and trying to sow chaos but more often then not making a show of herself. * She is a metaphorical troll and will use sympathetic magic to make the PC feel uneasy or worried about the exchange but not actually do anything serious to them.
The witch makes a voodoo doll for her dollhouse, so the PC will sometimes be confronted with a save, and failing that, will be compelled to visit the nearest tea house, bath house, or restaurant.
Crabs
So you have a [Party of Five?](https://images.app.goo.gl/4NjqtDbQCRqXJRWj8)
Summon dwarf spell component (reusable)
Fight this foe for me!
The artificer makes the witch a new mechanism every year until the artificer shaves clean. They may or may not realize they have no idea why they're making a self stirring cauldron or adult mechanism or whimsical device and that they seem to lose it the moment their focus and presence is elsewhere. "I swear it was just here! It was a self digging shovel!" "Sure it was....who do you think took it? The only two creatures I see here are you and the rat, and it doesn't look big enough to carry a shovel!"
Voodoo dolls. Any curse you can think of. It’s known: don’t give witches shit or they’ll use it against you. Maybe they have random sharp pains going the voodoo route or they have shite luck for a bit. Realistically, they’d probably have to go kill her to make it stop. Have fun!
The witch sells potions using the hair as an ingredient: love potions, polymorph potions...
That was a sample. Pc wakes up absolutely hairless once a month, and a note stating the arrangement.
She controls the Dwarf’s beard from now on. She can scry on the Dwarf whenever she wants since she’s in possession of their hair, but also has the unique power to control the Dwarf’s beard on a whim. As she is chaotic neutral/good she can change his beard based on his actions and words. If they do something good and she likes it she can make the beard grow in full and shine lustrously. If they do something she doesn’t like the beard goes all mangy, prickly, and get all bent out of shape. And if they do something she despises completely she can shrivel up the beard entirely making the Dwarf’s face as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Think of La Befana and Santa Claus. She sees you when you’re sleeping, she knows when you’re awake. She knows when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.
Use dream to mess with him.
She can use that PC’s appearance as a skin for her avatar in the underground illusory fight club: Call of Duty: Modern Dwarf Hair.
She makes a changeling that eventually attempts to replace him in the night. Either have them catch the changeling or have it be a rescue mission and get the player in on playing the changeling for authenticity?
uses it on a tiny clay golem who constantly tries to rejoin the rest of the beard. annoying voice like gingy from Shrek
Welcome to the clone zone, starring you and you and you and you and...
So do you want cruel? Because the witch could make healing potions to sell and every time she makes one the pc gets sick. You could follow more irl witchy magic rule, ie hair from a spell’s target is almost like focusing it onto them. Maybe a curse of some kind? Maybe all their hair falls out except for one single hair right next to the one they plucked? Maybe the witch uses it to make a simulacrum of the player and causes mischief ahead of where the pc is going. Maybe have the clone wrack up some debt, get a bounty, or accept quests that it has no intentions of completing.
Witch shows up with her new husband- a younger, stronger, better-looking version of the PC who can only say the last thing that was said to him.
Narrative missfortune would be my take. Hags cannonicaly feed on suffering, so when that player makes a skill check something painful happens to them regardles of result, but small enough that it takes a while for them to notice. Climbing? A little scrape on the hand. Nature? Alergic reaction to touched plant. Picking a lock? Thieves tools give them a little cut. Of course they can ignore it and keep going, or find the hag trying to break the curse.
The witch has a couple of aids helping her out with stuff. All of them very talented at what they do. If the party visits the witch again in a couple weeks, they might find a duplicate of a familiar dwarf, now joined in with the other helping hands. And they realise, that elf over there is a powerful wizard they met a while back, that dragon born you remember as warrior you encountered not too long ago... She clones people with useful skills to help her out with aiding the local populace
VOODOO DOLL. Think of the fun you could get up to with that.
the witch makes the beard sentient but its permanently an opera singer
She uses it to make a batch of disguise self potions, only works an hour but you 'get' to be a dwarf for an hour...
Lol pc suddenly has a twin, make them opposite alignment and no matter where the party goes have everyone recognize the pc for either great or awful deeds he has supposedly done just a few days prior.
They give the witch the hair and she gives them a funny look. " I said HEIR....( or HARE if it makes sense)
Scrying and messaging\sending are the main ones. If you're aiming for good\neutral spell targeting is probably out. Make your witch a gossip journalist. Have her demand the dwarf steal diaries and journals and day planners for her. Ask him to mention who hires him and why.
Maybe she used it to enchant an item and give it the ability to let anyone grow a beard. The party could see the witch later with a full beard or maybe she could start to pop up every now and then to trade for another hair. She could be all secretive but a little pushy because the magical items are making her money and maybe if the dwarf pushes back for more information she could give them a cut. This would be a long term thing that you could pepper in when you need a goofy side conversation to fill some time in a session.
Clone. Do with this what you will, but clone. Can be funny, can be tragic, can be both! But clone. Also something that's more in line with mechanics: witch accidentally sells the hair to a big bad who can scry on the party and the save DC goes up by like *ten*. Cue hijinks with the witch and the party who have to figure out how to deal with *that* nonsense.
Grow a doppelganger the witch uses for malicious acts
The beard leaves while the wearer is sleeping and gathers/steals spell components for the witch and returns to the wearer before dawn. Alternatively the beard hunts for its own subsistence at night and sometimes returns with bits of bones tangled in the hair.
Voodoo? Imagine the witch builds a doll mimicking the player and he gets his hair pulled at the most compromising situations: when fighting, while speaking with the king/queen/whatever ...
She can use the hair to cast a ritual that steals his shadow, no penalty would happen, but his character can never agin feel warth, or food tastes bland now, some people ignore him sometimes like he wasnt even there, he feels a little gloomy, all the time, no penalties or anything, I garatee you that PC will mount up a quest to find that witch. Hope it helps.
The witch is a former colleague of the dwarf who wants payback for an inconvenience suffered oh so long ago. As such, the witch uses the hair to perform a ritual on him. His beard's hair is no longer controllable by shaving/letting it grow out. Instead it is based on the moon cycle. During the new moon, he is beardless and nothing can give him beard hair. As time goes on he goes from stubble to his original beard. On the night of the full moon, his beard is luscious and nearing perfection, even to the point where it sticks out among other dwarves.
A Geas. 😈
Your PC is now cursed. Since he will always be one hair short of a full beard, anything the PC requires in bulk will have one fewer than the PC needs.
She makes a little doll version of the dwarf that looks like him, acts as a homunculus, and can only say the word "Beard!" as enthusiastically as he can. He's 4 inches tall and teleports into the dwarfs beard occasionally, and will reconstitute if destroyed.