Female Merchant
Female Merchant — The Encounter
The market vendor who knows every price and every secret · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Female Merchant
Every market has its queen of the stall, and she rules without a crown. She came up among carts and crates, learning before she could read that a price is only the first word of a long conversation, and that a customer's eyes betray their purse before their mouth ever does. She has weighed grain with a thumb on the scale and sworn on her mother's grave that the spirits were aged a decade. None of it is quite a lie, and none of it is quite the truth. Bandits learn quickly that the woman with the basket is no easy mark: a thrown bottle of harsh liquor will blind a thief long enough for the watch to come running, and her tongue can talk a blade from a man's hand before he remembers why he drew it. She knows the going rate of mercy, and she has been known to sell it dear.
Run Female Merchant in Sixty Seconds
- She's a face, not a fighter — her whole kit is misdirection: blind the tank, distract the striker, talk her way out of a hit. Run her as an obstacle or a turncoat ally, not a brute.
- Open with the bottle on the most dangerous melee attacker; the DC 13 Dex save to avoid blindness shuts down a multiattacker for a round.
- Kill-priority her dog first — while Pip is within 5 ft., attacks against her have disadvantage and you'll waste turns whiffing.
- When bloodied she stops trading blows and leans entirely on Cut a Deal and Silver Tongue, stalling to flee into the crowd or summon the watch.
- Three ways to run her: a feisty market NPC the party must protect, a smuggling-ring fence who flips on her bosses, or a scaled-up merchant-prince fielded beside a real boss.
Female Merchant
Medium humanoid (human), neutral
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINEKeen Appraiser. The merchant has advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks to read a creature's intentions, and on any check to determine the value, authenticity, or origin of an object.
Silver Tongue. Signature. When the merchant makes a Charisma (Deception or Persuasion) check, she may add a flourish of practiced patter: if she fails the check, she may reroll it once, but the second result must be used even if lower. Once per turn when a creature within 30 ft. that can hear her starts its turn, she may quip a distraction; that creature must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom save or have disadvantage on the first attack roll it makes this turn.
Actions
Multiattack. The merchant makes two attacks with her thrown wares.
Hurled Bottle. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d4+2) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity save or be blinded until the end of its next turn as caustic spirits splash its eyes.
Cudgel. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8+1) bludgeoning damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Cut a Deal (Reaction). When a creature the merchant can see hits her with an attack, she may offer it something better. The attacker must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom save or have its damage halved against her as it hesitates, distracted by her offer.
A bottle held high in one hand, a wares basket at her feet, this apron-clad vendor of the open market reads a buyer the moment they approach.
Female Merchant, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEGuard the Wares (signature). While within 5 ft. of the merchant, Female Merchant imposes disadvantage on attack rolls made against her by creatures it can see.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage, and a Medium or smaller target must succeed on a DC 12 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Snarl. When a creature moves to within 5 ft. of the merchant, Female Merchant may make a Bite attack against it.
A wiry mongrel that sleeps under the cart by day and bares its teeth the instant a stranger's hand drifts toward the coin box.
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 hurling a bottle at the heaviest-armored attacker to blind it, then quip Silver Tongue at whoever moves first. Keep Pip at her side so attacks against her have disadvantage, and use Cut a Deal when she's struck hard. She's a flavorful low-tier obstacle or a reluctant ally; pair her with town-guard adds or a bigger bandit-captain threat rather than fielding her alone.
Scaled up, she anchors a guild-boss's entourage. Lead with a blinding bottle on the party's striker, then chain Silver Tongue distractions each round to blunt the alpha-strike. Keep her behind cover and her hirelings; pair her with a bigger threat so the action economy holds against a full party.
At this size she's a spymistress merchant-prince commanding a lair of toughs and informants. Open by blinding the controller, distract the party's biggest damage-dealer every turn, and halve incoming burst with Cut a Deal. She is not a solo boss; run her with minions and lair hazards, and pair her with a heavier centerpiece adversary.
Put Female Merchant 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 Female Merchant?
Her home tier is Tier 1 (levels 1-4), built around CR 2 (450 XP): AC 13, HP 45, +4 to hit, save DC 13. The tiers table scales her identically to CR 6 and CR 11 if you need her to stand among a higher-level cast.
Can Female Merchant be a companion or ally?
Yes. She makes an excellent non-combat ally or quest-giver who flips to the party's side: Keen Appraiser values loot and spots forgeries, Silver Tongue handles haggling and parley, and her thrown blinding bottle gives the group a soft-control option. Pip the Stall Hound comes with her as a loyal guard.
Is she solo boss material?
No. She has no legendary actions and only one reaction, so a four-player party will out-act her quickly. Use her as a flavorful add-on, a face, or a turncoat ally, and pair her with a larger centerpiece adversary or a band of minions when you want real pressure.
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
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