Alptraum
skeletal sky-terror of the Sons of Nightmare
Alptraum — The Encounter
skeletal sky-terror of the Sons of Nightmare · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Alptraum
Among the Sons of Nightmare, Alptraum is the herald that arrives first, the cold shape that crosses the moon before the warband lands. Folklore across many tongues names the night-mara that crouches on the chest and steals breath; Alptraum is that terror given wings and bone. It does not grapple a victim so much as harry them, shrieking until courage curdles, then opening the way for heavier kin to descend. Cunning-folk hang iron and rowan at the eaves to keep its diving silhouette from the threshold, for once it has marked a roof the rest of the flock will follow before three nights pass.
Run Alptraum in Sixty Seconds
- It flies, so fight up then expect it to dive, strike, and leave you swinging at empty air.
- Dive Shriek deafens then that target rolls its next attack with disadvantage on a failed DC 14 Con save.
- Two claws plus necrotic then 14 slashing and 7 necrotic per hit chews through soft back-rankers fast.
- No fear, no sleep then frighten and sleep effects are wasted on it.
- It is a herald then killing it fast denies the rest of the Sons their spotter.
Alptraum
Medium fiend (nightmare), neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEDive Shriek. When Alptraum ends a flying dive within 5 feet of a creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution save or be deafened and have disadvantage on its next attack until the end of its next turn.
Nightmare-Born. Alptraum is immune to being frightened and to magic that would put it to sleep.
Actions
Multiattack. Alptraum makes two Claw attacks.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6+3) slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) necrotic damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Fly-By (Bonus Action). Alptraum flies up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
A starved kite of bone and skin, it folds and falls out of a black sky to scream beside a sleeper's ear.
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 with a dive shriek to deafen the bravest defender, then claw and lift away. Keep to the air between strikes so melee parties cannot pin it. It fights as part of the flight, never alone.
Dive on the back rank, shriek a caster into disadvantage, then claw and use Fly-By to retreat 30 ft. up. Mark one roof and let Cauchemar and the brutes close while you circle and screech.
Strafe the party as the flock's spotter, shrieking the strongest target each round and clawing stragglers. Stay airborne and let the warband below grind the front line; never land to brawl solo.
Put Alptraum 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 Alptraum?
Alptraum is CR 6 (2,300 XP) at its native Tier 2, with statlines provided for Tiers 1 and 3 if you need it for a lower or higher table.
How does Alptraum fight alongside the rest of the Sons of Nightmare?
It is the flock's airborne herald: it arrives first, shrieks defenders into disadvantage, and marks targets, then circles overhead while ground brutes like Hunllef and Incubo move in to finish the work.
Is Alptraum a boss I can run solo?
No. It is rank-and-file aerial support with no legendary kit; run it with at least one other Son of Nightmare so the dive-and-screech tactics matter.
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 Alptraum 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