Fishwaves
Fishwaves — The Encounter
A breaking wave woven from a thousand living fish · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Fishwaves
Sailors of the cold coasts speak of a wave that hunts. Where ordinary swells rise and collapse, the Fishwaves keeps its arch, for the water is bound together by a single drowned will moving through every creature in it. When the sea takes a soul and gives nothing back, the abandoned spirit is said to gather the small fish, the crabs, and the bottom-feeders into one body and learn again how to reach the shore. It does not feed in the way a beast feeds. It engulfs and holds, dragging the struggling down into the silver thrash until breath fails, then releases what it no longer needs to the tide. Fishermen leave a portion of the catch on the rocks at the turning of the year to keep the wave at sea, and those who mock the custom are the ones the wave remembers. It cannot be killed on dry land, only scattered; come the next storm, it gathers again.
Run Fishwaves in Sixty Seconds
- What it is: a Large water elemental made of living fish that holds the shape of a breaking wave — immune to prone, grapple, and restrain, and unkillable on dry land (it just scatters and re-forms).
- Open with Engulf: ram the squishiest target, swallow them into the swarm — engulfed means blinded, restrained, can't breathe, and chip damage every turn.
- Kill-priority is rescue: the engulfed PC is on a drowning clock, so the table should free them before chasing damage on the wave itself.
- When bloodied: it fixates — engulf and slam the same victim on back-to-back turns, and use Riptide Recoil to drag melee attackers into the froth and knock them prone.
- Three ways to run it: a roaming storm-coast hazard (T1), a swim-chase boss-add that flees into deep water (T2), or a flooded-temple set-piece paired with a sea-tyrant and minions (T3).
Fishwaves
Large elemental, neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINELiving Surf. The Fishwaves is a colony of countless fish and crustaceans moving as one wave. While in a body of water it can pass through a space as narrow as 1 foot wide without squeezing, and difficult terrain made of water doesn't cost it extra movement.
Engulfing Tide. Signature. When the Fishwaves breaks over a creature it does not merely strike but swallows it into the swarming mass. A creature engulfed by the wave is blinded, restrained, and unable to breathe unless it can breathe water, and takes the wave's slam damage at the start of each of the wave's turns.
Actions
Multiattack. The Fishwaves makes two Crashing Slam attacks, or it uses Crashing Slam and Engulf.
Crashing Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Engulf. The Fishwaves moves up to its swim speed. While doing so it can enter Large or smaller creatures' spaces. Whenever it enters a creature's space, that creature must make a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw. On a success, the creature is pushed 5 feet out of the wave's path. On a failure, the creature is engulfed (see Engulfing Tide) and takes 14 (4d6) bludgeoning damage. The Fishwaves can hold one engulfed creature at a time.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Riptide Recoil. When a creature within 10 feet hits the Fishwaves with a melee attack, the wave can drag that creature 5 feet toward it. The creature must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone amid the thrashing fish.
A wall of seawater rears up and curls to break, but it never falls apart — the crest is a churning braid of thousands of living fish, crabs, and eels, all swimming in unison to hold the shape of a wave.
Fishwaves, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEWave Whisper (signature). As a bonus action, Fishwaves can command the swarm-wave's flow. Until the start of her next turn, the Fishwaves treats one ally she names as if it could breathe water and move freely through the wave's space.
Actions
Coral Trident. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8 + 4) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) cold damage.
Reactions
Pull of the Undertow. When an ally within 30 feet would be engulfed, Fishwaves can drag them 10 feet through the water toward herself, ending the threat for that creature.
A salt-bleached spellbinder who first called the wave together and now rides inside its hollow, half-drowned and unwilling to let it go.
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 sweeping along a line of clustered swimmers or dock-bound PCs with Crashing Slam to knock them prone in the shallows. Kill-priority is whoever it engulfs — free them fast before they drown. Run it as a lair hazard at a flooded ruin, not a lone fight.
Open with Engulf on the lightest-armored caster, then peel away with its swim speed so the party must chase into deep water. When bloodied it grows reckless, engulfing and slamming the same target two turns running. Pair it with a Tidecaller or sahuagin-style raiders so it isn't out-acted by four heroes alone.
Open by Engulfing and immediately Riptide-dragging melee strikers into the surf so the front line drowns instead of trading blows. Kill-priority is anyone holding the engulfed ally; deny rescue and the fight tilts fast. Field it with minions and a flooded-temple lair — a centerpiece sea-tyrant should anchor the encounter alongside it.
Put Fishwaves 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 Fishwaves?
Its home tier is CR 6 (Tier 2, ~2,300 XP): AC 15, HP 126, +7 to hit, save DC 14. Scale it down to roughly CR 2 for levels 1-4 or up to about CR 11 for levels 11-15 using the tier table — the traits stay the same, only the numbers move.
Can Fishwaves be a companion or ally?
Not directly — it's a mindless drowned colony, not a friend. The bound spellbinder Tidecaller is the playable ally: she rides inside the wave's hollow and can command its flow, shield allies from being engulfed, and pull drowning friends out of the undertow.
How do you actually kill something made of water and fish?
You can't slay it on land — reduce it to 0 HP and the wave simply scatters into ordinary fish, only to gather again in the next storm. Lasting victory means breaking the bound will holding it together (deal with Tidecaller or the drowned spirit), trapping it away from any body of water, or magically purifying the tide it draws from.
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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