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Hags (or harpies)  infest the hilly southern reach of Emphdor, usually striking at dusk or dawn, carrying off cattle to feed. They are large winged monstrosities, with huge wings of midnight black and sharp talons as if craved from iron, and malicious in nature. Occasionally, an unfortunate farm-boy or a shepherd might be carried off, but rarely do they take off with a…coffin. A funeral procession has the unfortunate experience of being beset by a group of hags while marching off to the burial grounds, and two of the grotesque beasts landed with their talons on the coffin and flew off with it. What does the hags want with the dead? Would the adventurers be willing to brave the hags-infested crags to retrieve a dead body?

1. Under intense questioning, the truth comes to the light. The adventurers will learn that the funeral is a sham; in order to smuggle some valuable relics and antiques out of the country, the smugglers carried out a false funeral, with the items hidden in the coffin. That still leads to another question – what do the hags want with antiques, stone tablets and relics? Perhaps finding what exactly those things are would help.
2. During the commotion, the adventurers would realise that the ‘pall-bearers’ are quite comfortable with fighting and are skilled with the bow. This is not an ordinary procession! The truth is that within the coffin lies the corpse of a powerful necromancer, whose spirit would just possess another weak-willed individual if his host body is destroyed. Having subdued the necromancer, his opponents were carrying him off to an ancient sacred ground to perform a ritual to destroy the necromancer’s spirit forever when the hags attack. Hags, by nature though, do not ally with any mortals. Why would they rescue the necromancer?
3. Though hags are dangerous and kill anyone who dare to set foot within their nests, still many brave their crags for their eggs, which are powerful reagents used in many alchemical mixtures. Knowing that such a valuable cargo would draw the attention of brigands and other greedy merchants in the area, the shipment is done under the guise of a funeral. The escort, however, failed to realise that the hags would be after their own eggs too! Complicating the matter, those eggs are needed for a medicine to cure the surrounding villages of a plague. Should the adventurers retrieve the eggs? Other than a wholesale slaughter of the hags, are there any other solution for the adventurers?

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