Vyrsha
Vyrsha — The Encounter
The vanishing staff-dancer you only see once she is gone · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Vyrsha
Among the Lyrians, born of the First Song, Vyrsha is the quiet between two notes — the gap you do not notice until it has already passed. She was not taught to vanish; she simply learned that the world remembers sound more readily than the one who made it, and stepped into that forgetting. Wanderers swear they glimpsed a robed figure at the edge of a clearing, a staff catching the dusk, and turned to greet her only to find the grass already settling where she had stood. She takes no contracts of loyalty, only of resonance: where a wrong rings loud enough, her staff answers, and the wrongdoer is on the ground before the strike is heard. Hunt her and you chase an after-image. The truest accounts of Vyrsha are written in the past tense, for you only ever see her after she is gone.
Run Vyrsha in Sixty Seconds
- Mobility is the whole block — she moves 40 ft., Step Past as a bonus action, and Vanishing Trace gives disadvantage to anyone who didn't watch her move. Don't let her stand still and trade.
- Open on the backline — Vyrsha ignores the front rank and goes for the caster, archer, or healer; that's the threat she exists to delete.
- Kill-priority is the party's protected target, not her own survival — run her to punish bad positioning every round.
- When bloodied, stop committing: spam Disengage, Slip the Blow, and obscurement to drag the fight out and force the party to chase.
- Three ways to run her: (1) hit-and-run duelist on one PC, (2) Sweeping-Strike crowd-tripper into a cluster, (3) elusive lieutenant beside a bigger boss — never solo.
Vyrsha
Medium humanoid (beastfolk), chaotic neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEVanishing Trace. You only see her after she's gone. When Vyrsha hits a creature with a melee attack, she does not provoke opportunity attacks from that creature until the end of her next turn. The first time on a turn she ends her movement at least 15 feet from where she started, she becomes lightly obscured to creatures that did not see her move (attacks against her are made at disadvantage until the start of her next turn).
Evasion. When Vyrsha is subjected to an effect that allows a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, she instead takes no damage on a success and half damage on a failure.
Actions
Multiattack. Vyrsha makes three Staff attacks. She can replace one with Sweeping Strike.
Quarterstaff. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+5) bludgeoning damage. If the target is within 5 feet of an ally of Vyrsha, it takes an extra 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage.
Sweeping Strike (Recharge 5-6). Vyrsha whirls her staff in a wide arc. Each creature within 10 feet must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 18 (4d6+4) bludgeoning damage and being knocked prone on a failure, or half damage and remaining standing on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Step Past (Bonus Action). Vyrsha takes the Dash or Disengage action.
Slip the Blow (Reaction). When a creature Vyrsha can see hits her with an attack, she halves the damage and may move up to 15 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.
A lean, fox-faced Lyrian frozen mid-lunge, robes snapping like a struck chord, a long staff braced low across a wide fighting stance. By the time her echo fades, she has already moved.
Vyrsha, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Sense (signature). The Vyrsha has advantage on Perception and Survival checks that rely on hearing, and cannot be surprised while it can hear.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6+3) piercing damage, and if the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 13 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Run Down. When a creature within 30 feet that the Vyrsha can hear moves away, it can move up to its speed toward that creature without provoking opportunity attacks.
A lean grey hound that hears footfalls a field away and runs down what its mistress has already left behind.
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 with a Disengage-and-strike on the squishiest backliner, then keep moving so Vanishing Trace keeps her hard to hit. If foes cluster, lead with Sweeping Strike to knock several prone. She is a skirmisher add-on — pair her with a tougher melee anchor so the party can't simply gang the runner.
Open against an isolated caster or archer, triple-strike, then Step Past out of reach. Kill-priority is whoever the party most wants protected — she punishes positioning, not raw HP. When bloodied she leans entirely on Slip the Blow and Vanishing Trace to bleed the fight; deploy her alongside a bigger threat or a pack so the party is split.
Run her as the elusive lieutenant beside a flagship boss: she peels off to harry healers and casters while the boss controls the front. Lead with Sweeping Strike into a cluster, then disengage every round. With minions or in a lair full of cover she becomes nearly impossible to pin — never a solo, always the second knife.
Put Vyrsha 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 Vyrsha?
Vyrsha is built at CR 6 (2,300 XP) in her native Tier 2 form — a Dexterity-based skirmisher meant for parties of levels 5-10. The record also gives scaled Tier 1 (levels 1-4) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) numbers so you can drop her into almost any table without rebuilding her.
Can Vyrsha be a companion or ally?
Yes. Her kit is mobility and precision rather than brute force, so she makes an excellent rogue/monk-style NPC ally or, with the GM's blessing, a player-adjacent skirmisher. The included Echo-Hound, Bound also works as her bonded animal companion or as a stand-alone tracker.
Is Vyrsha a boss or an add-on?
She is an add-on, not a centerpiece — solo_capable is false. With no legendary actions, a four-PC party will out-act her quickly if she fights alone. She shines as the elusive second threat next to a heavier flagship boss, peeling off to harass the party's casters and healers.
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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