Isolyna
Isolyna — The Encounter
Pincered Temptress of the Cities of the Plain · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Isolyna
When fire fell on Sodom and Gomorrah, not every soul was struck clean from the world; some were caught in the smoke and remade. Isolyna was once a courtesan of those proud cities, and the curse that took her bones twisted her vanity into the shape it deserved. Her arms hardened into the pincers of a scorpion of the wastes, her spine drew out into a barbed tail, yet her face she kept, the better to draw travelers close before the claws close on them. The grimoires that catalogue the spirits of the plain warn that she hunts where ruin already lies, climbing toppled walls and sleeping in cisterns, and that she favors the boastful and the lustful above all other prey. To bargain with her is to be flattered, embraced, and then folded slowly in two. Salt scattered at a threshold is said to keep her skittering elsewhere, for she cannot abide the memory of what salt did to the woman who looked back.
Run Isolyna in Sixty Seconds
- Hold for the soft target. Skittering Ambusher gives advantage against anyone who hasn't acted, so wait for the squishy back-liner and open there.
- Open with both pincers. Two Pincer hits on one creature triggers Pincer Vise: grappled, dragged 5 ft., and disadvantage on the poison save that follows.
- Kill-priority the dragged PC. Once Isolyna isolates someone, focus the Venomous Sting on that grappled target while they save at disadvantage.
- When bloodied, climb and reset. Use Scuttle as a bonus action to wall-crawl out of reach, then ambush back in with advantage.
- Three ways to run her: a hit-and-run flanker who isolates one PC, a poison-stacker who softens the party for a brute, or a vertical skirmisher who fights from walls and ceilings. Never as a lone boss.
Isolyna
Medium fiend (demon), chaotic evil
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINEPincer Vise. When Isolyna hits one creature with both pincers on the same turn, that target is grappled (escape DC 13) and Isolyna can drag it 5 feet without provoking. While grappled this way the target has disadvantage on saves against her Venomous Sting.
Skittering Ambusher. Isolyna has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in combat yet. She doesn't provoke opportunity attacks when she leaves a creature's reach by climbing.
Actions
Multiattack. Isolyna makes two Pincer attacks and one Venomous Sting attack.
Pincer. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) slashing damage.
Venomous Sting. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or take 5 (2d4) poison damage and be poisoned until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Scuttle (Bonus Action). Isolyna takes the Disengage or Dash action, or moves up to her climb speed along a wall or ceiling.
Lashing Tail (Reaction). When a creature Isolyna can see ends its movement within 10 feet of her, she makes one Venomous Sting attack against it.
A flame-haired temptress whose graceful arms end in heavy serrated pincers and whose serpentine tail tapers to a dripping sting, Isolyna stalks the ash-buried streets of the doomed cities, beautiful from the front and monstrous from any other angle.
Isolyna, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEWall-Crawler (signature). The Isolyna has a climb speed of 40 feet and can move across vertical surfaces and ceilings without making an ability check. It has advantage on Stealth checks made among rubble or ruins.
Actions
Rending Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8+2) slashing damage, and if the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 11 Strength check or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Carapace Guard. When the creature it guards is hit by an attack, the Isolyna interposes its shell, granting that ally a +2 bonus to AC against the triggering attack.
A hound-sized chitinous beast born of the same ash that made Isolyna, it scuttles at her heel and flings itself across the prey she marks.
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 from a wall or cistern against whoever hasn't acted yet, using Skittering Ambusher's advantage to land both pincers and lock Pincer Vise on a soft caster or archer. Drag the grappled target away from its friends, then Venomous Sting at disadvantage to stack poison. Pair her with a heavier brute boss as the flanker who isolates and poisons one PC while the boss holds the front.
Run her as the lair's poisoner alongside minions or a larger threat. Grapple-drag a key PC into a ruin, hold them with Pincer Vise, and let Lashing Tail punish anyone chasing in. Kill-priority her if the party is melting under poison saves; she folds once both claws can't reach the same target.
Field her as the venom-specialist lieutenant beside a bigger flagship boss and a swarm of scuttlers, never alone. She climbs over the fight to reach the back line, Pincer Vise to drag the controller out of position, and chains Venomous Sting through Lashing Tail. When bloodied she Scuttles up a wall to reset and strike again from above.
Put Isolyna 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 Isolyna?
Her native build is CR 2 (450 XP), tuned for a Tier 1 party of levels 1-4. Scaled stat blocks for Tier 2 (levels 5-10) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) are provided so she stays a credible flanker beside higher-level bosses; the traits never change, only the numbers.
Can Isolyna be a companion or ally?
As written she's an adversary, but the bound Cinder-Scuttler stat block lets a party run a tamed ash-beast of the same brood as a companion. A GM could reskin Isolyna herself as a treacherous fiendish patron-ally for a charisma-leaning campaign, but her instincts make any such bond short-lived.
Does she work solo against a full party?
No. Isolyna is an add-on striker with no legendary actions, so a four-player party will out-act her in one round. Pair her with a flagship boss, minions, or a hazardous ruin lair where her climbing and ambush shine.
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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