Astaroth, the Grieving Duke
the grieving duke — a throne of wailing souls on a serpent's coil.
Astaroth, the Grieving Duke — The Encounter
the grieving duke — a throne of wailing souls on a serpent's coil. · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Astaroth, the Grieving Duke
Astaroth is a Great Duke of Hell who commands the grief of the dead. She does not rage; she mourns, and her mourning is a weapon. Kept souls boil around her coils, screaming in a cone that liquefies the living, and any humanoid she kills is simply added to the throne. Run her as a solo lich-scale boss, or throned above her cult.
Run Astaroth, the Grieving Duke in Sixty Seconds
- Aura of Mourning anyone starting within 20 ft. eats 2d6 psychic + attack disadvantage.
- Devouring Wail 30-ft cone, 10d8 — kills to feed the throne.
- Grief's Grip halves all healing within 60 ft.
- Beckon the Kept legendary drag to pull a PC into the cone.
- Legendary Resistance x3 plus Magic Resistance — plan your saves.
Astaroth, the Grieving Duke
Huge fiend (demon lord), neutral evil
CR 13 · 10,000 XP · GUIDELINELegendary Resistance (3/Day). If Astaroth fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Magic Resistance. Astaroth has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Aura of Mourning. A creature that starts its turn within 20 feet of Astaroth must succeed on a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw or be overcome by grief, taking 7 (2d6) psychic damage and having disadvantage on attack rolls until the start of its next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. Astaroth makes two Rending Talon attacks and uses Devouring Wail if available.
Rending Talon. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) slashing damage plus 9 (2d8) necrotic damage.
Devouring Wail (Recharge 5–6). The kept souls scream in a 30-foot cone. Each creature there must make a DC 18 Constitution saving throw, taking 45 (10d8) psychic damage on a failure, or half as much on a success. A humanoid reduced to 0 hit points by this damage dies and its soul joins the throne.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Grief's Grip (Reaction). When a creature within 60 feet regains hit points, Astaroth halves the amount healed.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Talon (Costs 1 Action). Astaroth makes one Rending Talon attack.
Beckon the Kept (Costs 1 Action). One creature within 30 feet must succeed on a DC 18 Strength saving throw or be pulled up to 20 feet toward Astaroth.
Veil of Sorrows (Costs 2 Actions). Astaroth teleports up to 60 feet and each creature within 10 feet of its destination takes 10 (3d6) psychic damage.
A serpent's coil rises into a queen crowned in horns, and where her gown should fall there is only a heaped mass of wailing faces — every soul she has ever kept, still grieving, still hers.
Astaroth, the Grieving Duke, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINELegendary Resistance (3/Day) (signature). If Astaroth fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Actions
Rending Talon. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) slashing damage plus 9 (2d8) necrotic damage.
Reactions
Grief's Grip (Reaction). When a creature within 60 feet regains hit points, Astaroth halves the amount healed.
The same Huge fiend, bound as a lesser ally and set to guard whoever summoned 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.
A scaled-down Astaroth, the Grieving Duke for a low-level party — same role, softer numbers. She is the legion's grieving demon-lord — an aura that saps attacks, a soul-cone that mass-kills, and healing suppression that grinds the party down while her cult feeds her the fallen.
She is the legion's grieving demon-lord — an aura that saps attacks, a soul-cone that mass-kills, and healing suppression that grinds the party down while her cult feeds her the fallen.
Astaroth, the Grieving Duke at full legion strength. She is the legion's grieving demon-lord — an aura that saps attacks, a soul-cone that mass-kills, and healing suppression that grinds the party down while her cult feeds her the fallen. Field it alongside the rest of the legion to raise the stakes.
Put Astaroth, the Grieving Duke 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 Astaroth, the Grieving Duke?
At its native tier Astaroth, the Grieving Duke is CR 13. Scale the AC, HP, to-hit, and save DC to the tier line matching your party's level.
How does Astaroth, the Grieving Duke fight in its legion?
She is the legion's grieving demon-lord — an aura that saps attacks, a soul-cone that mass-kills, and healing suppression that grinds the party down while her cult feeds her the fallen.
Is Astaroth a solo boss?
Yes — at CR 13 with legendary actions, Legendary Resistance, and Magic Resistance she carries a fight alone for a level 11–13 party. Add cultists, fighters, and knights only to raise the stakes or lower her effective difficulty by drawing fire.
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.
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