Serendipity the Crone
Planar night hag [she/her] / Mind’s Eye (formerly Sign of One) / NE
She says her name’s Serendipity, but most right-thinking bashers dub the epithet ‘the Crone’ to the end of her innocent-sounding name. Well, as soon as they’re out of her earshot, at least. Serendipity’s a night hag, and one of the ugly ones. She’s got warts on her warts, and then coarse black hairs growing on top of them! Her faces is as gnarled and wrinkled as a gehreleth’s boot, and her breath smells as bad, too. Still, for all her faults, it has to be said she provides a very much sought-after service.
Chant is that she tried to make it big on the larvae trade, like most hags, but never managed to sell a single one. That’s not because they were of poor quality, but because she was simply so hideous-looking that she scared her customers away! Again, that story’s never told when she’s even on the same plane, because she’s got good enough hearing and a nasty enough temper for a blood to worry about. She came to Sigil, fell in with the Sign of One, and learned to hide her features under a veil. She doesn’t much show her face, except to scare away would-be trouble-makers. To this day, she’s not once been peeled.
Serendipity’s a Signer, which means she reckons the whole sodding multiverse revolves around her head. Mind you, that’s an attitude shared by many night hags. The difference between them and Serendipity is that she’s got a heart. Or at least, she’s got a heart if you garnish her well. She’s set herself up as a fortune-teller, and has an astounding array of devices she uses to tell the future. Well, that’s what it looks like, anyway. The dark is that she’s got a pet mimic who changes form to suit whatever she wants; be it a giant crystal ball, a scrying pool, or a brazier of incense.
For a modest fee, she’ll tell a cutter what his fortune is. Now read that sentence again. She won’t foretell it, she’ll tell it. She imagines a real nice future for the basher, and then it comes true. She’s usually a bit vague though (possibly to leave room for manipulations afterwards, should she be so inclined), and it’s a cert that paying more gets a happier ending.
The hag’s been accused of cheating and using magic or psionics to divine the future for clients, but she vigorously denies that’s the case. She dreams then all up herself, she says, and she’s proud of the fact. Of course, in most places she’d be branded a knight of the cross trade, but in Sigil, imagination’s got as much clout as any magic spell. Funny thing, that.
Fee: Anything from 2 gold and up.
Further Reading: More fortune tellers are described here: Fortune Sellers
Source: Jon Winter-Holt, mimir.net
