Makanan
twin-cleaver butcher of the troll warband
Makanan — The Encounter
twin-cleaver butcher of the troll warband · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Makanan
Makanan is the War Trolls' butcher, a troll who fights with a pair of broad cleavers as if dressing a carcass rather than a foe. He works close and fast, both blades falling in a relentless rhythm that opens armor like hide. The march-grimoires note that Makanan does not chase or maneuver; he simply waits in the thick of the press and carves whatever comes to him, his wounds closing as fast as the enemy can make them. Among the warband he holds the killing middle of the line, the grinder the others drive their prey into. Fire and acid are the only blades that bite him back.
Run Makanan in Sixty Seconds
- Fire or acid then his regeneration stops and the butcher can be cut down.
- Don't take both cleavers then deny the Cross-Cut bonus by spreading his targets.
- Watch the kill-chain then a dropped ally lets him Cleaving-Strike into the next.
- Stay out of the grinder then he can't carve three swings into a clustered melee.
- He never fights alone then expect the warband to herd you onto his blades.
Makanan
Large giant (troll), chaotic evil
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINERegeneration. Makanan regains 15 hit points at the start of its turn. If it takes acid or fire damage, this trait doesn't function at the start of its next turn. Makanan dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn't regenerate.
Butcher's Flurry. Makanan's two heavy cleavers move in a constant rhythm. When it scores a critical hit with either cleaver, it can make one additional cleaver attack as a free action.
Cleaving Strikes. If a cleaver attack reduces a creature to 0 hit points, Makanan can move up to 5 ft. and make one cleaver attack against another creature within reach.
Actions
Multiattack. Makanan makes three cleaver attacks.
Heavy Cleaver. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+5) slashing damage.
Cross-Cut. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+5) slashing damage. If the target is hit by both cleavers in the same turn, it takes an extra 9 (2d8) slashing damage.
A horn-helmed troll holds a heavy cleaver in each fist, ready to carve through the press.
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.
A close-range grinder in a small troll mob. Makanan plants in the press and carves whoever is adjacent, using Cross-Cut on a single target to stack both cleavers for bonus damage.
He is the warband's grinder. Keep him in the densest melee where three cleaver swings a round find targets, and Cleaving Strikes lets him roll into a fresh foe on a kill. Other trolls herd prey to him.
Run him as the warband's butcher, never alone. Set him in the killing middle of the troll line, three swings a round, Cross-Cut for burst, chaining Cleaving Strikes through clustered PCs. Acid or fire is the only counter to his regeneration.
Put Makanan 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 Makanan?
Natively CR 11 (7,200 XP) at Tier 3. Scale to CR 2 or CR 6 using the tier table.
How does Makanan fight alongside the rest of the War Trolls?
He is the warband's close-range grinder. He holds the killing center of the line while the other trolls herd enemies into his twin cleavers, where three attacks a round shred anything that gets pushed in.
Is Makanan a solo boss?
No. He has no legendary actions and is an elite line-fighter. Run him with the War Trolls as their butcher in the thick of the press.
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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