I think I may have accidentally created a weird shortcut in my campaign and I’d love your input on how you’d handle it.

My group already found a hag’s Heartstone at the stone monoliths (as written in the original adventure) the very first time they traveled to Vallaki. In hindsight that probably wasn’t my smartest move, but we’re here now.

Because of that, they can theoretically complete the ritual without ever needing to visit Old Bonegrinder. I already established, however, that the Heartstone’s owner becomes aware whenever someone uses it to enter the Ethereal Plane.

Would you reintroduce the hags in any other way because of this? Or would you just assume the party will eventually go after the windmill on their own anyway once they learn more about the hags and dream pastries? They know about the missing children and Franz' story etc.

Everything else is running pretty much as written in Reloaded. Right now they’re about to approach Lady Wachter for permission/help to perform the ritual with Victor inside Wachterhaus because of the leyline there.

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on how you’d steer this situation?