Curie
beak-masked blade-dancer of the Grim Flock's plague-wake
Curie — The Encounter
beak-masked blade-dancer of the Grim Flock's plague-wake · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Curie
The grimoire names the Grim Flock as plague-walkers who claim the dead before the dead are cold, scavengers in beaked masks who follow ruin like crows follow a battlefield. Curie is one of their swordsmen, drilled to fight wing-to-wing rather than alone: a duelist who treats a melee as a flock treats carrion, swarming the wounded and abandoning ground the instant it stops feeding. The long beak is no mere ornament; the Flock pack it with smoking herbs against the rot they carry, and Curie has breathed that taint so long that poison no longer bites. Folk who survive a Flock attack remember the same thing every time: never one blade, always the next one already turning toward your back.
Run Curie in Sixty Seconds
- Never alone then keep Curie within 10 ft. of an ally so Flock Footwork adds 1d6 and turns off clean opportunity attacks.
- Open on the soft target then send both Curved Blade swings at the lowest-AC or lowest-HP enemy.
- Poison the wall then use Beak Lunge on the front-liner to force the DC 12 Con save and stick the poisoned condition.
- When bloodied then Wheeling Step out of reach and let another Flock member take the front.
- Three ways to run it then a paired duelist (T1), a wheeling murder of 3-4 (T2), or a full carrion-swarm flight (T3) - always a pack.
Curie
Medium humanoid (grim flock), lawful evil
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINECarrion Constitution. Curie has advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and against disease, and ignores the effects of breathing tainted or plague-fouled air.
Flock Footwork. Signature trait. While at least one ally is within 10 feet of Curie, Curie's melee attacks deal an extra 3 (1d6) slashing damage, and opportunity attacks against Curie are made with disadvantage. The Grim Flock fights as one wheeling murder, never as a lone blade.
Actions
Multiattack. Curie makes two attacks with its curved blade.
Curved Blade. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) slashing damage.
Beak Lunge. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage, and if the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Wheeling Step. Reaction, when a creature Curie can see ends its turn within 5 feet: Curie moves up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks, repositioning to flank with the rest of the Flock.
A masked swordsman in a long-beaked crow visor glides between corpses, blade trailing low, never alone for more than a heartbeat. Where one of the Grim Flock circles, a dozen more are already wheeling in.
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.
Run Curie as a paired skirmisher, never alone. Open by sliding between two party members so Flock Footwork is live, then take the squishiest target with two Curved Blade swings. When a foe steps adjacent, use Wheeling Step to keep a flanking partner at its side.
Field three or four together as a wheeling murder. Have them gang the same target so Flock Footwork stacks across the warband, and rotate Beak Lunge to poison front-liners before the killing swings land. If one is bloodied, Wheeling Step it back behind the others rather than trading blows.
A full flight of Curies fights as a single carrion-swarm, never solo. Collapse the whole flight onto one isolated hero, drown them in advantage-backed blades, then peel off as a flock and re-form on the next wounded target. Keep them moving with Wheeling Step so the party can never pin the swarm in place.
Put Curie 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 Curie?
Curie is a CR 2 (450 XP) skirmisher in its native first tier, with stat blocks scaled to roughly CR 6 and CR 11 for higher-tier tables. It is rank-and-file elite, not a boss, so it is not solo-capable.
How does Curie fight alongside the rest of the Grim Flock?
Like a crow in a murder. Curie's Flock Footwork rewards staying within 10 feet of allies, so it never duels alone - it swarms a single victim with the rest of the Flock, poisons front-liners with Beak Lunge, and uses Wheeling Step to keep a flanking partner glued to the target while peeling wounded members to safety.
Why isn't Curie immune to poison if it carries plague?
Curie resists poison damage and shrugs off being poisoned thanks to Carrion Constitution, but it is a living humanoid, not undead - so it takes reduced poison damage rather than ignoring it entirely, keeping it a believable rank-and-file threat.
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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