Cassyx
Cassyx — The Encounter
Crab-clawed she-fiend risen from the cities of the plain · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Cassyx
When the twin cities of the plain were thrown down in fire and salt, not all who perished stayed dead. Cassyx clawed her way back through the brimstone that buried her, and the punishment fused to her flesh: hands that would once have grasped at forbidden things became great pincers of black shell, and her blood ran hot with the same fire that razed her home. The grimoires of the cautious name her among the lesser fiends of Sodom and Gomorrah, a scavenger of the ruin who drags the living down to share her fate. She favors collapsed wells and shattered cisterns, climbing sheer walls on splayed claws to fall upon travelers from above. To be seized in her grip is to feel the salt-flame of two cities pressed into one's bones, and few so taken are ever pried loose alive.
Run Cassyx in Sixty Seconds
- Open from above. Cassyx has climb 30 ft. — start her on a wall or ceiling and drop onto a back-line target turn one.
- Grapple is the whole plan. Both claws on one Medium-or-smaller target = grappled (escape DC 15), then Scuttle drags them off. Kill-priority: the PC who can least afford to be pulled away.
- Spit recharges on 5-6. Hold Scalding Spit for a cluster of two-plus and the blind it inflicts; don't waste it on a lone target.
- When bloodied, her Saltflame Blood is already punishing melee — lean into it, stay surrounded, and keep dragging captives onto your other monsters.
- Three ways to run her: as a wall-crawling ambusher who isolates one PC, as a vise paired with a hard-hitting boss, or as a brine-spitting controller softening a clustered party.
Cassyx
Medium fiend, neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEPincer Grapple. When Cassyx hits a Medium or smaller creature with both claws on the same turn, that creature is grappled (escape DC 15). While grappling a creature this way she cannot claw a different target, but she has advantage on claw attacks against the grappled creature.
Saltflame Blood. When Cassyx takes piercing or slashing damage, the wound erupts with brimstone. Each creature within 5 ft. of her that can see the spray must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity save or take 5 (1d10) fire damage.
Actions
Multiattack. Cassyx makes two Crushing Claw attacks.
Crushing Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 4) bludgeoning damage. If the target is grappled by Cassyx, it also takes 5 (1d10) fire damage.
Scalding Spit (Recharge 5-6). Cassyx spits caustic brine in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in the area must make a DC 14 Dexterity save, taking 22 (4d10) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also blinded until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Scuttle (Bonus Action). Cassyx moves up to half her speed without provoking opportunity attacks. If a creature is grappled by her, it is dragged with her.
A lean she-fiend with skin of bruised blue and violet, crowned by a fan of frozen red flame, her forearms ending in two enormous crustacean pincers of black chitin. She crouches low on clawed feet, ready to seize and crush.
Cassyx, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPincer Drag (signature). When the bound Cassyx grapples a creature with her claws, she may immediately pull it 10 ft. toward an ally or hazard you choose.
Actions
Crushing Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d10 + 3) bludgeoning damage.
Reactions
Salt Spray. When an adjacent ally is hit by a melee attack, Cassyx spits brine at the attacker, who must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution save or be blinded until the end of its next turn.
Chained to a binder's will, the crab-fiend becomes a living vise — seizing foes and hauling them onto the party's blades.
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 by scuttling up a wall and dropping on the squishiest PC, then close both claws to grapple. Use Scalding Spit on a cluster of two or more. Pair her with a melee bruiser so the party can't simply focus the grappled ally free.
Lead with Scalding Spit to blind clustered PCs, then grapple the caster or healer and drag them away from the party with Scuttle. Kill-priority: keep claws on whoever can break the grapple least. She shines as an add-on flanker beside a heavier boss — let the boss pressure the front while she isolates a back-liner.
Run her as a lair skirmisher: she climbs walls and ambushes from above, grabbing and dragging one PC into a hazard each round. Have her open with the spit-cone, then commit to the grapple chain. Pair her with a bigger threat or a pack of minions — alone she lacks the action economy to hold a high-tier party.
Put Cassyx 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 Cassyx?
Her home tier is CR 6 (Tier 2, levels 5-10): AC 16, 123 HP, +7 to hit, save DC 14. The stat record also gives dialed-down Tier 1 (~CR 2) and scaled-up Tier 3 (~CR 11) lines so you can drop her into any party level without rebuilding the block.
Can Cassyx be a companion or ally?
Yes. The 'Cassyx, Bound' profile (AC 15, 74 HP) plays her as a bound fiend who grapples enemies and drags them onto your party's weapons, with a Salt Spray reaction that blinds attackers. She's a control-flavored ally, not a damage dealer.
Why does Cassyx have crab claws and where is she from?
She's a lesser fiend of the ruined twin cities of the plain (Sodom and Gomorrah). The lore frames her destruction as having fused her hands into great crustacean pincers and filled her blood with salt-flame — entirely public-domain biblical and folkloric source material, with no proprietary cosmology involved.
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.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
Played Cassyx 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