Aneesa
barnacle-bloated spinner of the drowned reef
Aneesa — The Encounter
barnacle-bloated spinner of the drowned reef · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Aneesa
Among the Colony of Barnakol, Aneesa is the snare that the warriors fight behind. Sailors' tales from a hundred sunken hulls speak of the same shape: a bloated thing on rope-thin legs, scuttling the underside of broken decks, draping cold web across every hatch before the horde pours in. The brine that crusts her body is the colony's own, and her silk carries it, so that the bound do not merely struggle but freeze. The Colony grows her larger with every wreck she anchors; her webs are the colony's walls, her venom the colony's larder. Where Aneesa weaves, the rest of Barnakol need only wait for the drowning to finish its work.
Run Aneesa in Sixty Seconds
- She's the snare, not the killer so web first and let the colony finish.
- Cold silk bites back any restrained creature takes 2d6 cold each turn it stays stuck.
- Burn the webs they're vulnerable to fire and only 15 HP, so a torch frees an ally fast.
- She lives on ceilings she climbs upside down with no check, so she rarely stands where you can flank.
- Free your friends a DC 14 Strength check or AC 10 web cut breaks the restraint.
Aneesa
Large monstrosity, neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINESpider Climb. Aneesa can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without an ability check.
Brine-Webbing (signature). Aneesa's webs are soaked in colony brine. A creature that starts its turn restrained by her web takes 7 (2d6) cold damage and the web counts as difficult terrain for others.
Actions
Multiattack. Aneesa makes two Fang attacks. She can use Web (Recharge 5-6) in place of one attack.
Fang. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) poison damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution save or be poisoned for 1 minute.
Web. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 30/60 ft., one Large or smaller creature. Hit: the target is restrained by webbing. As an action it can make a DC 14 Strength check, freeing itself on a success. The webbing (AC 10, 15 HP) is vulnerable to fire.
A swollen reef-spider whose legs are sleeved in living barnacles, dropping from drowned rafters to bind prey in freezing silk.
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 by webbing the loudest melee threat to split the party, then bite anything that comes to free it. Hold the doorway so the rest of the colony funnels in behind you. Climb out of reach when bloodied and spit web from above.
Lead with Web on the healer or ranged threat, then alternate Fangs between the restrained and whoever tries to cut them loose. Keep the web zone as a chokepoint for the warband. Retreat up a wall and re-web rather than trade blows when bloodied.
Fight as the colony's web-anchor in a swarm, never alone: wall off the room with brine-silk and let the pincered members crush the snared. Prioritize webbing casters first. When bloodied, pull back to the ceiling and keep refreshing webs so the flight controls the field.
Put Aneesa 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 Aneesa?
Aneesa is CR 6 (2,300 XP) at her native Tier 2, with Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 3 (~CR 11) numbers provided so she can scale to any table.
How does Aneesa fight alongside the rest of the Colony of Barnakol?
She is the warband's web-anchor: she binds and freezes prey in chokepoints so the pincered and bladed members can swarm in and crush the snared. She never duels, she controls the field.
Can fire really shut down her webs?
Yes. Her brine-silk and restraint webbing are vulnerable to fire, so a single burst of flame both frees captured allies and denies her the chokepoint she relies on.
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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