Gorm
frost-crowned grave-herald who drives the dead host onward
Gorm — The Encounter
frost-crowned grave-herald who drives the dead host onward · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Gorm
Gorm wears the crown the White Runners chose for him, a jagged diadem of frost, though he commands nothing the host did not already wish to do. He is its will made loud: where the runners would falter, his hand sweeps forward and they surge; where one is struck down, his word holds it upright a moment longer. He fights from the heart of the flight, flinging cold hexes to slow the living so the swift dead overtake them, never closing unless the kill is already won. Skalds name him the grave-herald, the voice that turns a scatter of corpses into a single hunting thing, and they say to silence the host you must first silence him.
Run Gorm in Sixty Seconds
- Kill priority then strike Gorm first; he is the engine that drives and revives the whole host.
- Open with Frost Hex then slow the party's fastest escaper so the runners catch them.
- Keep the pack up then use Grave Herald to hold a dropped runner at 1 HP each round.
- When bloodied then retreat behind Harald and the dead; never let Gorm fight in the open alone.
Gorm
Medium undead, lawful evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEDriving Command. Allied undead within 30 feet of Gorm have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened, and add 10 feet to their speed while moving toward an enemy.
Grave Herald. When an allied undead Gorm can see within 30 feet is reduced to 0 hit points, Gorm can use his reaction to give it 9 (2d8) temporary hit points; it stays standing at 1 hit point instead of falling. He can use this once per round.
Actions
Multiattack. Gorm uses Frost Hex, then makes one Grave Touch attack.
Frost Hex. Ranged Spell Attack: +6 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (4d6 + 4) cold damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 feet until the end of its next turn.
Grave Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (3d6 + 3) necrotic damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Quickening Word (Bonus Action). Gorm urges one allied undead he can see within 30 feet to act; that creature can immediately use its reaction to move up to half its speed.
Open-handed and frost-crowned, this dead herald hurls hexes and drives the slower dead forward with a silent word.
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.
Keep Gorm behind the runners, hexing whoever the pack is chasing to slow them. Use Grave Herald to keep a fallen runner up. He is the warband's engine; protect him and never push him forward alone.
Park Gorm 30 feet behind the flight so Driving Command speeds every advance. Hex the party's fastest escaper each round, and spend Grave Herald to refuse a packmate's death. Quickening Word lets a runner reposition for a flank. When bloodied, fall back behind Harald; the host fights for him.
In a full warband, Gorm is the conductor and the kill-priority. His aura and reactions make the whole flight relentless, so the party should rush him. He never fights alone; he hangs back, hexing and reviving while the dead screen him.
Put Gorm 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 Gorm?
Gorm is CR 6 at his native Tier 2 (about 2,300 XP). Run him near CR 2 for Tier 1 or about CR 11 for Tier 3 using the tier table; his command and herald traits stay identical and only the numbers scale.
How does Gorm fight alongside the rest of the White Runners?
He is the host's will and engine: Driving Command speeds the flight and steadies its nerve, Frost Hex slows prey so the runners overtake it, and Grave Herald keeps fallen packmates standing. He fights from the rear, never the front.
Is Gorm a boss?
No. He is a support elite, not solo_capable. He has only single-target offense and no action-economy kit of his own; his danger is entirely in how he multiplies the warband, making him the clear kill priority.
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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