[RPG] How to you revive a character who was killed by a Night Hag’s Nightmare Haunting

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The Night Hag has an ability that can reduce a character's hit point maximum via nightmares provided they are evil. It then proceeds to state:

If this effect reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and if the target was evil, its soul is trapped in the hag's soul bag.

The non-stat box text says:

If the hag has driven her victim to commit evil deeds, she traps its corrupted soul
in her soul bag (see the "Night Hag Items" sidebar) for transport to Hades.

The soul bag is described as follows:

Soul Bag. When an evil humanoid dies as a result of a night hag's Nightmare Haunting, the hag catches the soul in this black sack made of stitched flesh . A soul bag can hold only one evil soul at a time, and only the night hag who crafted the bag can catch a soul with it. Crafting a soul bag takes 7 days and a humanoid sacrifice (whose flesh is used to make the bag) .

What happens if Raise Dead is cast on the body of the victim? If the victim cannot be raised this way, how can his soul be recalled and reunited with his body to revive him?

Best Answer

Kill the hag, or obtain the bag some other way.

DM: After fleeing the night hag, you rush to the temple with Groody's lifeless body, you burst through the door and place him on the floor at the foot of the altar, throwing a bag of gold at the priest. The priest, understanding the circumstances, proceeds to cast raise dead, yet no breath returns to Groody's lifeless form. What do you do?

Thomas: RIP. Next quest, I guess.

Unless Groody had a really poor relationship with the rest of the party, this is not how it's going to go down. We want vengeance, and we want to free our friend's soul.

Not even true resurrection can bring Groody's soul back from the hag bag, as even the most powerful resurrection spell requires the soul be both free, and willing. So the only solution is to free Groody from the soul bag the old fashioned way - kill the hag and destroy the bag. To be fair, the Night Hag's description doesn't tell us what happens in this scenario, but to me, it seems quite natural that destroying the soul bag would release the soul inside.

And then return to the priest with another fat sack of gold.

That said, any number of other methods may work here, as long as they involve the soul being released from the soul bag, be it through a trade deal with the hag, deceiving the hag, stealing the bag, etc.