Morvyna
Morvyna — The Encounter
Pincered She-Fiend of the Ashen Cities · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Morvyna
Among the ash-haunts that crept from the ruin of the burned cities, Morvyna is named in the marginalia of fire-and-brimstone homilies as a daughter of the cursed plain, a fiend grown from the unrepented appetites of a place struck from the earth. Witnesses who fled the smoking gates spoke of a pale figure that walked the slag on the talons of a great bird, twin reaping claws growing from her back like the limbs of a scorpion drowned in pitch. She does not fight to kill swiftly; she fights to hold, to pin a screaming penitent between her shears and squeeze until something within them is unmade. Exorcists warn that her bite of brimstone cannot be quenched by ordinary steel, and that her interest is never sated by a single victim. Where she walks, the ground remembers the burning, and the air smells faintly of cinders and salt.
Run Morvyna in Sixty Seconds
- She's a grappler, not a duelist her whole game is the two pincers. Lead with a grab on your two scariest PCs and keep them restrained.
- Vise restrains, not just grapples a held creature is restrained, has disadvantage attacking anyone but Morvyna, and takes extra Raking Talons damage. Kill-priority is whoever she's holding.
- Crush eats max HP every round, make a held target save or lose hit-point maximum until a long rest. This is how you beat a party's healer.
- When bloodied, don't let go she keeps her grip and leans on Snapping Riposte, punishing anyone who melees her with a free pincer snap.
- Three ways to run her: tank-locker (grab the fighter and ignore everyone), assassin (pin and Crush the caster to dust), or enforcer beside a bigger boss who controls the rest of the room.
Morvyna
Medium fiend (demon), chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEMagic Resistance. Morvyna has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Vise of the Twin Pincers. Signature. A creature Morvyna grapples with a pincer is restrained, not merely grappled. While she holds a creature in a pincer, she has advantage on the other pincer's attack rolls against that same creature, and the held creature has disadvantage on attack rolls against anyone but her. She can hold one creature in each pincer (two at most).
Actions
Multiattack. Morvyna makes two Pincer attacks and one Raking Talons attack. She can replace one Pincer attack with a use of Crush.
Pincer. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+4) slashing damage, and if the target is Large or smaller it is grappled (escape DC 15). See Vise of the Twin Pincers.
Raking Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage. If the target is a creature held in a pincer, this attack deals an extra 7 (2d6) slashing damage.
Crush. One creature grappled by a pincer must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, taking 18 (4d6+4) bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. The target's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken until it finishes a long rest.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Snapping Riposte (Reaction). When a creature Morvyna can see hits her with a melee attack while within 10 feet, she makes one Pincer attack against it.
A lean, violet-skinned she-fiend with a blazing crest of crimson, Morvyna stalks on raptor talons while two enormous chitinous pincers arc from her shoulders, snapping at the air in hungry anticipation.
Morvyna, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEAsh-Cloud Veil (signature). As a bonus action, the Morvyna stirs a swirl of hot ash in a 10-foot radius around itself. The area is lightly obscured until the start of its next turn, and the first creature to enter or start its turn there takes 5 (2d4) fire damage.
Actions
Searing Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d4+4) slashing damage plus 4 (1d8) fire damage.
Reactions
Embered Step. When a creature within 5 feet hits the Morvyna, it can teleport up to 15 feet to an unoccupied space it can see, leaving a brief gout of flame in its old space.
A smoldering, half-formed husk of fused ash and ember that pads at Morvyna's heel, glowing where its cracked hide splits.
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 snapping a pincer onto the front-line fighter to restrain them, then rake. If the party clusters, she pins the squishiest reachable target and Crushes to shred their HP max. Run her as a brute hazard alongside a couple of cultists; she is a grappler, not a boss, so pair her with a bigger threat.
Open by grabbing the two most dangerous melee or caster targets, one in each pincer, locking them down with Vise of the Twin Pincers. Kill-priority: whoever she's holding, since they have disadvantage attacking anyone else and eat bonus Raking Talons damage. Crush the held target each round to grind their max HP; Snapping Riposte punishes anyone who trades blows with her.
Open by seizing the party's controller and striker, then Crush to strip hit-point maximums before healing can keep up. At this tier run her with minions or in a fiend-haunted lair so the freed PCs are punished for breaking grapples; she is an add-on enforcer, so pair her with a bigger flagship threat rather than fielding her alone.
Put Morvyna 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 Morvyna?
Her home build is CR 6 (Tier 2, levels 5-10): AC 16, 123 HP, +7 to hit, save DC 15. Stat blocks for Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 3 (~CR 11) are provided so you can drop her into any table by swapping only the numbers.
Can Morvyna be a companion or ally?
She reads best as an adversary or rival, but a fiend-pact campaign could bind her as a monstrous enforcer. For a true ally pet, use the included Cinderling companion (AC 13, 74 HP) at her side instead.
How do I keep Morvyna from feeling like a stat-check grapple?
Telegraph the pincers and give players outs: breaking the restrained grapple (escape DC 15) frees an ally, and ranged or magical damage ignores her chitin (it only resists nonmagical weapons). Crush is the threat clock, so reward parties who pry victims loose before their hit-point maximum bleeds away.
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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