Hastur
Hastur — The Encounter
The Unspeakable One in tattered yellow, He Who Must Not Be Named · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Hastur
Of the Unspeakable One the old playbooks warn: speak not his name a third time, lest the speaking summon him. He is the King in Yellow, the Feaster from Afar, who wears tattered robes the colour of fever and a pallid mask none have looked upon and remembered. Where his cult raises the Yellow Sign upon a lonely shore or a drowned tower, the stars grow wrong and a strange city is glimpsed beyond twin suns. His servants — the masked, the whispering, the hollowed — labour to inscribe his sigil in the waking world so that he may unfold his full and final shape. Those who study the forbidden drama that bears his name return changed: hearing music that is not played, speaking of crowns and lakes that do not exist. He covets not flesh nor gold but recognition, and each utterance of his name is a thread by which he draws the world a little nearer his pallid court.
Run Hastur in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the reveal Mantle of Tatters fires the first time each turn someone looks at him, so position him centrally and force the party to look — frightened creatures can't approach and have disadvantage.
- Open with Whisper Whisper of the Yellow Sign hits a 30-ft cone of choices for psychic plus fear; lead with it while the party is still clustered, then recharge-burst it every 5-6.
- Grapple the caster Each Tendril grapples and restrains Large-or-smaller; drag the squishiest PC into the writhing base and use Lash from the Tatters to punish anyone moving near him.
- When bloodied spend legendary actions on Maddening Step to teleport out of melee focus and The Sign Revealed to renew fear, so the party can never lock him down.
- Three ways to run him raw solo terror against a tier-3 party; faction centerpiece flanked by masked acolytes; or a slow-burn ritual boss the party races to interrupt before the Yellow Sign is completed.
Hastur
Large aberration, chaotic evil
CR 9 · 5,000 XP · GUIDELINEMantle of Tatters. Hastur's true form is hidden beneath shredded yellow vestments. The first time a creature looks upon what lies within during a turn, it must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or take 11 (2d10) psychic damage and be frightened until the end of its next turn. A creature that fails by 5 or more is also incapacitated until the end of its next turn as the Unspeakable shape sears its mind.
Writhing Roots. The tentacles that form Hastur's base make the ground within 10 feet of it difficult terrain for other creatures. Hastur ignores this effect and cannot be knocked prone.
Magic Resistance. Hastur has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Actions
Multiattack. Hastur makes two Tendril attacks and uses Whisper of the Yellow Sign if it is available.
Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 16) if it is Large or smaller. Until the grapple ends, the target is restrained and Hastur can't use the same tendril on another target.
Whisper of the Yellow Sign (Recharge 5-6). Hastur murmurs a single unspeakable word. Each creature of its choice within 30 feet that can hear or sense it must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw, taking 27 (6d8) psychic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also frightened of Hastur until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Lash from the Tatters. When a creature Hastur can see moves out of or starts its turn within 15 feet of it, Hastur can use its reaction to make one Tendril attack against that creature.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Tendril. Hastur makes one Tendril attack.
Maddening Step (Costs 2 Actions). Hastur sinks into its own writhing mass and rises again, teleporting up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space it can see. Each creature within 5 feet of the space it leaves and the space it arrives must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or take 9 (2d8) psychic damage.
The Sign Revealed (Costs 2 Actions). Hastur flares the Yellow Sign. Each creature within 30 feet that can see it must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of Hastur until the end of its next turn; a creature already frightened by Hastur instead drops whatever it is holding.
A towering shape wrapped in mouldering yellow rags, its hidden face crowned with curling horns, rising from a knot of black tentacles between two guttering braziers. He does not move so much as unfold, and to read the sigil at his hem is to invite the loss of one's own name.
Hastur, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEVeil of Borrowed Silence (signature). The acolyte and any ally within 10 feet have advantage on saving throws against being frightened, drawing the dread into the mask instead.
Actions
Ritual Sickle. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) psychic damage.
Reactions
Recite the Sign. When an ally within 30 feet fails a Wisdom save, the acolyte can use its reaction to let that ally reroll, choosing the new result.
A robed servant of the Yellow Sign who has bartered its name for a measure of its master's power; it carries the dread so its allies need not.
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 Whisper of the Yellow Sign to soften the clustered party, then grapple the squishiest caster with a Tendril and drag it from cover. Lean on Lash from the Tatters to punish anyone fleeing the writhing base. Pair it with a cluster of masked cultists so the action economy hurts.
Lead with Mantle of Tatters fear on the front line, grapple-restrain the melee bruiser, and rotate Whisper of the Yellow Sign onto the back rank. Kill-priority is whoever can cure fear or grant saving-throw rerolls. Run it as a faction centerpiece flanked by acolytes and a few servitors.
This is a solo boss: open by frightening the line with Mantle of Tatters, multiattack-grapple a key PC, then spend legendary actions on Maddening Step to escape focus fire and The Sign Revealed to keep the party frightened. Burst Whisper of the Yellow Sign whenever it recharges. Kill-priority: anyone removing the frightened condition; protect that target with Lash from the Tatters reactions.
Put Hastur 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 Hastur?
Hastur is built as a Challenge Rating 9 solo boss (5,000 XP) at his native Tier 3 (party levels 11-15). Because he carries a full action-economy kit — two distinct legendary action options plus the Lash from the Tatters reaction — his sheet drops one band so he plays up against a four-person party. The stat record also includes scaled Tier 1 and Tier 2 columns so you can field him for levels 1-4 or 5-10 by swapping the AC, HP, to-hit, and save DC.
Can Hastur be a companion or ally?
Not as the Unspeakable One himself — he is a centerpiece adversary. The record provides a scaled-down ally instead, The Masked Acolyte (Bound), a servant of the Yellow Sign with about 60 percent of the adversary's durability who shields allies from fear and lets them reroll failed Wisdom saves. Use the acolyte as a hireling, doomed cultist defector, or a rival summoner's pawn the party can turn.
How do I make Hastur feel genuinely eldritch at the table?
Withhold his name and his face. Describe sounds the players don't have a source for, let the Yellow Sign appear in unrelated places before the fight, and narrate Mantle of Tatters as the moment a character glimpses something their mind can't hold. The psychic damage and fear are the mechanical spine, but the dread comes from never letting the party see all of him at once.
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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