Prismal Dragon
Prismal Dragon — The Encounter
The Faceted Tyrant, whose hide drinks light and spits it back as blades · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Prismal Dragon
It is written that the Prismal Dragon was not hatched but grown, condensed across slow ages from a vein of singing crystal buried beneath a sunless peak. Where lesser wyrms hoard gold, this one hoards light itself, dragging captured radiance into its faceted hide until the body becomes a lantern that blinds rather than reveals. Scholars of the old grimoires name it a tyrant of mirrors, for those who hunt it return either dead or sightless, swearing the beast was in three places at once. Its breath is no flame but a spear of broken sun, splintering through armor and eye alike. The crystal throne on which it roosts is said to be its own slow shedding, a cathedral of shards that hums when the dragon stirs. To approach it in daylight is folly; to approach it in darkness is to invite the blinding dawn it carries within.
Run Prismal Dragon in Sixty Seconds
- Hold its breath. Don't waste Prismatic Breath turn one unless two or more PCs are bunched; this dragon wants a clustered target before the recharge fires.
- Open from the air. Fly 80 ft., breathe the cone down the party's tightest knot, then land only to Multiattack the squishiest body.
- Kill-priority: the healer. Blinding Facet and the breath both stack the blinded condition; spend legendary actions to keep the party's healer or radiant-dealer sightless.
- When bloodied, scatter. Use Refracted Wingbeat to knock the melee line prone and reposition airborne; Refracted Step gives it disadvantage to be hit in bright light, so let the room stay lit.
- Three ways to run it: solo (lean on legendary actions + Shard Riposte to out-action a 4-PC party), with a Facetling (the bound companion wards the dragon and blinds melee), or as a lair fight (the crystal throne is full-cover terrain it hides behind).
Prismal Dragon
Large dragon, lawful neutral
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINEPrismatic Hide. Signature. The dragon's faceted scales bend and store light. The first time on each of its turns that the dragon takes damage, it sheds a wash of glare: each creature within 10 ft. that can see it must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn.
Refracted Step. When the dragon is fully illuminated by bright light, attack rolls against it have disadvantage, as its outline splinters into duplicate facets.
Actions
Multiattack. The dragon makes three attacks: one with its Bite and two with its Claws. It can replace one Claw with a use of Tail Lash.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) piercing damage plus 9 (2d8) radiant damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6 + 6) slashing damage.
Tail Lash. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Prismatic Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales a fan of shattered light in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 45 (10d8) radiant damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also blinded until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Shard Riposte. Reaction. When a creature the dragon can see hits it with a melee attack, the dragon erupts a spray of crystal splinters at that creature, which takes 9 (2d8) piercing damage.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Detect. The dragon makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Tail Sweep. The dragon makes one Tail Lash attack.
Blinding Facet (Costs 2 Actions). The dragon focuses light into a lance. One creature it can see within 60 ft. must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of the dragon's next turn, taking 9 (2d8) radiant damage on a failure.
Refracted Wingbeat (Costs 2 Actions). The dragon beats its prismatic wings. Each creature within 10 ft. must succeed on a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or take 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The dragon can then fly up to half its flying speed.
A tall, upright wyrm sculpted from living quartz, wings spread wide above a throne of raw crystal, every facet catching and throwing back the light around it.
Prismal Dragon, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEMirrored Ward (signature). While within 10 ft. of an ally, the facetling can use its reaction to impose disadvantage on an attack roll against that ally by flashing a refracting shard.
Actions
Shard Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) slashing damage plus 4 (1d8) radiant damage.
Reactions
Splintering Glare. When hit by an attack, the facetling sheds glare; the attacker must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn.
A lesser crystal serpent calved from the dragon's own hide, loyal to the light that made it.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open with the breath cone on the most clustered group, then bite the closest spellcaster. When bloodied, take to the air and use legendary Tail Sweep to keep melee at bay. Pair the breath with terrain that funnels the party tightly.
Lead with Prismatic Breath where two or more PCs stand together, then Multiattack the lowest-AC target. Use Shard Riposte to punish every melee hit. When bloodied, fly up via Refracted Wingbeat and blind the healer with legendary actions.
Runs solo: open with Prismatic Breath to blind the back line, then Multiattack and Shard Riposte to tax the front. Kill-priority is the party healer or anyone with radiant immunity. Between turns spend legendary actions on Blinding Facet (lock down a caster) and Refracted Wingbeat (reposition + prone) so a 4-PC party never out-acts it.
Put Prismal Dragon on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Prismal Dragon?
Its home build is CR 11 (Tier 3, levels 11-15) with AC 18, 178 HP, +9 to hit and save DC 17. Because it carries a true legendary kit and a punishing reaction it is solo-capable, so its sheet is dropped one band to stay fair against a four-PC party. Scaled stat lines for Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 2 (~CR 6) are provided.
Can Prismal Dragon be a companion or ally?
The full dragon is built as a boss, but the record includes a scaled-down ally, the Facetling (Bound) — a lesser crystal serpent calved from the dragon's hide that wards allies, blinds attackers, and fights at roughly 60% of the adversary's durability. Use it as a player familiar, a bound guardian, or a junior threat alongside a bigger flagship.
Why does the dragon deal radiant damage instead of a classic elemental breath?
Its hide is living crystal that stores and refracts light, so its breath is a spear of shattered sun rather than fire or frost. That radiant focus pairs with its blinded-stacking traits — keep the room lit to trigger Refracted Step, and watch for enemies that resist or are immune to radiant damage as your kill-priority swing.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
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