Darm
single-clawed flying snatcher of the colony
Darm — The Encounter
single-clawed flying snatcher of the colony · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Darm
Darm is the Colony of Barnakol's talon from above, the member that takes prey off the deck entirely. Where Kizaht drags captives sideways into the swarm, Darm simply lifts them away. Its single great claw is grown for one purpose: to close on a body and bear it skyward, beyond the reach of friends and weapons both. Crews tell of comrades plucked from the rail mid-shout and dropped, broken, into the sea, or carried back to the colony's nest to be hung in the brine. The barnacles ridging its claw mark each lifting. Slow on its feet but tireless on the wing, Darm waits for the swarm to break a formation, then drops into the gap and chooses what to carry off.
Run Darm in Sixty Seconds
- It grabs and flies off a Great Claw hit grapples (escape DC 14) and Darm lifts you away from your party.
- Height is the threat carried high and dropped, you take falling damage on top of the claws.
- It hovers out of reach Flyby means it pays no opportunity attack to lift you clear.
- Free the captive fast beat the DC 14 escape or hit Darm hard before it gains altitude.
- Ready ranged fire ground it or force a drop, because melee can't follow it up.
Darm
Medium monstrosity, chaotic evil
CR 5 · 1,800 XP · GUIDELINESnatch and Lift (signature). On a hit with its Great Claw against a creature one size smaller, Darm can grapple it (escape DC 14) and fly off carrying it. While carried, the creature is restrained; if Darm takes it above 10 ft. and later drops it, the victim takes falling damage.
Hovering Flyer. Darm can hover, and it doesn't provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy's reach.
Actions
Multiattack. Darm makes one Great Claw attack and one Mandible attack.
Great Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d10+3) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14) if it is Medium or smaller and Darm has no creature already grappled.
Mandible. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (2d4+3) piercing damage.
A barnacle-encrusted flying beetle-thing with crusted folded wings and one disproportionate pincer-claw poised to seize.
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.
Swoop on an isolated, lightly armored target, grab with the Great Claw, and lift it away from its allies. Carry it over open water or a drop, then release. Stay airborne and out of melee reach.
Open by snatching the caster the swarm has separated and flying them out of the fight. Hover beyond reach while the party scrambles to help. When bloodied, drop your captive from height and disengage rather than getting pinned.
Fight as a flight, never alone: pair with the ground colony so it isolates a target, then lift the chosen body away. Strand casters above the swarm. When bloodied, drop the captive into the horde and climb out of reach.
Put Darm 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 Darm?
Darm is CR 5 (1,800 XP) at its native Tier 2, with Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 3 (~CR 11) numbers for scaling.
How does Darm fight alongside the rest of the Colony of Barnakol?
It is the swarm's aerial abductor. After the ground colony isolates a target, Darm swoops in, snatches them up, and carries them away from their allies, often to drop them or strand them above the horde.
Can it carry anyone?
It can snatch and lift creatures one size smaller than itself, so Medium and smaller characters are at risk. Larger creatures can still be clawed but not carried off.
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.
Played Darm at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
Log in to comment