2nd Guardian: Gryffon
2nd Guardian: Gryffon — The Encounter
Sky-Lord of Beak and Mane, Watcher of the High Crags · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is 2nd Guardian: Gryffon
Where the old roads climb past the tree line and the wind grows teeth, the gryffon keeps its watch. The crag-keepers of the high passes say it was the second guardian set upon the world: the lion's heart bound to the eagle's eye, made to ward the upper airs as the great cats ward the plains below. It nests on inaccessible spires and brooks no trespass through its skies, plunging on horse and rider alike with a shriek that scatters lesser birds for a league. Mountain folk leave it carcasses at the season's turning and call it Sky-Lord, never lord of men. It hoards bright things in its eyrie out of an eagle's habit, not a dragon's greed. To see one stoop is to see why the ancients carved it above their gates, talons spread, the perfect marriage of the hunter that climbs and the hunter that soars.
Run 2nd Guardian: Gryffon in Sixty Seconds
- Hold height. The gryffon is a flyer first. Stay aloft, dive in, climb back out of melee reach every round. If it gets pinned on the ground, it has lost.
- Open with the stoop. Fly 30+ ft. straight at a soft target, hit with Talons for the bonus 3d6, prone them, then bonus-action Beak. That is your best opening turn, every time.
- Kill-priority: casters. Grapple-and-drag the squishiest spellcaster out of the party's protection, then beak it to break concentration.
- When bloodied (63 HP), stop committing to grapples. Switch to pure hit-and-fly: strike, climb 80 ft., force the party to chase or out-range you.
- Three ways to run it: lone airborne ambusher harrying a caravan; a bonded pair guarding a mountain pass; or a flagship boss's loyal aerial mount that screens the real threat.
2nd Guardian: Gryffon
Large beast, unaligned
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEKeen Sight. The gryffon has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. It can pick out prey from a thousand feet aloft.
Stooping Hunter. Signature. If the gryffon flies at least 30 ft. straight toward a target and then hits it with a Talons attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 10 (3d6) damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. The gryffon may then make a Beak attack against the prone target as a bonus action.
Actions
Multiattack. The gryffon makes two attacks: one with its Beak and one with its Talons.
Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+4) piercing damage.
Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14) if it is Large or smaller. Until this grapple ends, the gryffon can't use its Talons on another target.
A blue-pinioned guardian frozen mid-cry on a shattered crag, eagle's head thrown back, lion's tail lashing, wings flared to climb. Every feather is carved to catch the wind it was born to ride.
2nd Guardian: Gryffon, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEWind-Reader (signature). 2nd Guardian: Gryffon has advantage on Perception checks relying on sight and on initiative rolls. Allies within 30 ft. of 2nd Guardian: Gryffon can't be surprised while 2nd Guardian: Gryffon is conscious.
Actions
Rending Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage. If 2nd Guardian: Gryffon moved at least 20 ft. toward the target this turn, the target makes a DC 13 Strength save or falls prone.
Reactions
Snatch and Climb. When a Medium or smaller ally within 5 ft. is reduced to 0 hit points, 2nd Guardian: Gryffon may seize them in its talons and fly up to half its speed, carrying the ally out of danger.
Raised from a fledgling by a falconer who never tamed it, only befriended it. 2nd Guardian: Gryffon answers a whistle, not a command, and only from one rider.
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 dive from out of sight so the Stooping Hunter bonus lands on a back-line target. Kill-priority is whoever the party most wants protected; the grapple drags them out of formation. Pairs with a single bigger beast or a beast-tamer NPC to anchor the fight.
Dive-bomb the squishiest caster, prone-and-grapple it with Talons, then bonus-action Beak it while the party scrambles. Hit-and-fly: it strikes, climbs 80 ft. out of melee reach, and stoops again next round, so ranged PCs and readied attacks are its real threat. Best run as a pair of guardians or alongside a flagship boss, not alone.
Lead with a stoop on the controller or healer to break their concentration before the bigger threat lands. Keep it airborne and harassing while a flagship adversary or a lair full of lesser beasts holds the ground; never commit it to a static melee. Pair it with a larger threat so the party can't simply focus it down.
Put 2nd Guardian: Gryffon 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 2nd Guardian: Gryffon?
Its native build is CR 6 (T2, levels 5-10): AC 16, HP 126, +7 to hit, save DC 15. Scaled stat lines are provided for T1 (CR ~2) and T3 (CR ~11) so you can drop it into any party without rebuilding it.
Can 2nd Guardian: Gryffon be a companion or ally?
Yes. Use the companion sheet for Pell, the Eyrie-Born (AC 14, HP 75) — a fledgling raised by a falconer, ridden by one rider only. Pell scouts with Wind-Reader, prevents the party being surprised, and can snatch a downed ally out of danger.
Why is it a beast and not a monstrosity?
This record uses only SRD 5.1 framing, and the gryffon of classical and heraldic myth is statted as a Large beast here — a natural predator of the high crags, not a magical aberration. Run it like a dangerous apex animal with one signature dive.
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 2nd Guardian: Gryffon 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