Berloom
twin-pincered winged crusher of the colony
Berloom — The Encounter
twin-pincered winged crusher of the colony · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Berloom
Berloom is the Colony of Barnakol's vise, the member that holds prey still while the swarm dismantles it. Its twin pincers, thick with old barnacle and salt-scar, can take a body between them and crush slowly, indifferent to struggle. The colony pairs Berloom with its bladed and venomous kin: what Berloom holds, they carve. On the wing it is ponderous but unstoppable, dropping onto a knot of defenders to clamp two of them at once and pin them in place. Drowned-port survivors recall the sound more than the shape, the slow grinding crack of a shell-vise tightening while the rest of the horde swept past the helpless caught in its grip.
Run Berloom in Sixty Seconds
- It clamps and crushes a Pincer hit grapples (escape DC 15); both pincers restrain and deal 2d6 a turn.
- Held means dead what Berloom pins, the rest of the colony carves up at leisure.
- It hovers in to grab Flyby lets it drop into your line and lift away without provoking.
- Break the grip quickly beat the DC 15 escape or kill the pincer-holder before the crush adds up.
- Don't bunch up two free pincers means it can pin two of you at once, so spread out.
Berloom
Medium monstrosity, lawful evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEVise Grip (signature). On a hit with a Pincer, Berloom can grapple the target (escape DC 15). A creature grappled by both pincers is restrained and takes 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage at the start of each of its turns from the crushing hold.
Hovering Flyer. Berloom can hover and doesn't provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy's reach.
Actions
Multiattack. Berloom makes two Pincer attacks.
Pincer. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15) if Berloom has a free pincer.
A broad-shelled flyer on four veined wings, two oversized crab-like pincers held forward to seize and crush.
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.
Clamp the front-line fighter to lock them in place, then crush each turn while the colony flows around. Hold a target for the swarm rather than chasing. Disengage to the air when bloodied.
Open by clamping the toughest defender in both pincers to restrain and start the crush, taking them out of the fight while bladed colony members pile on. Hover just in reach. When bloodied, drop the captive and lift away rather than trade blows.
Fight as the swarm's vise, never solo: clamp and restrain a key target so the reapers and spinners finish it. Pin two foes at once when you can. When bloodied, keep crushing whoever you hold; the horde does the rest.
Put Berloom 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 Berloom?
Berloom is CR 6 (2,300 XP) at its native Tier 2, with Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 3 (~CR 11) numbers so it can scale to any party.
How does Berloom fight alongside the rest of the Colony of Barnakol?
It is the swarm's vise. It clamps and restrains key defenders, crushing them in place, while the colony's bladed and venomous members carve up the foes it holds helpless.
Is Berloom a boss?
No. It is an elite controller, not solo-capable. Its hold is only lethal because the rest of the colony exploits the pinned target; run it as the anchor of a larger swarm.
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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