Baba Yaga is a renowned witch and appears as a stooped, old woman with an impossibly long nose and wild white hair. Her milky yellow eyes stare, unblinking, at no fixed spot. She has no teeth, instead wearing a set of sentient, magical, iron dentures. Her teeth are often off pursuing their own agenda, and the two bicker constantly. She wears frayed burlap robes and, occasionally, a black silk scarf over her escaping locks. Her skin has a bark-like quality, and she smells of lightning and pine. While perfectly able to walk, the witch is most often seen flying about the world in her enormous mortar and pestle, the latter of which she uses as a rudder in flight.

Collector of Secrets. Few planes or places are free from Baba Yaga's madness and meddling. She desires knowledge above all things and greatly enjoys knowing the secrets of others. Many queens and kings have been extorted by the Old Witch, who records their secrets on parchment stored in a chest made from a giant emerald. She has a weakness for enchanted baubles, and her home, a wooden hut that travels on huge chicken legs and whose interior defies natural law, is stuffed full of magical bric-a-brac.

Nightmare and Nurturer. Those who've bargained with Baba Yaga successfully claim she is a fair and honest person with a fondness for animals and wild things. She actively seeks strong adventurers to pursue dangerous quests for her, usually to acquire either a great secret or a powerful artifact. However, she is also a pitiless murderer, who slips through the shadows in the moonlight to feed on sleeping innocents with her wretched iron teeth. She holds grudges and does not forget the smallest slight.

Master of Many. She collects servants as she does trinkets and takes great pleasure in adding to her soul horde. The Three Horsemen draw their power from her and do her bidding. At various times, she has held the soul of Koschei and forced him to perform legendary feats on her behalf. The Old Witch is known to appear in several places at once. Some scholars believe Baba Yaga is actually three identical sisters, each with her own personality and preoccupations.