Marakai
Marakai — The Encounter
Horned wing-tyrant that haunts the ruined castle's broken shrine · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Marakai
Among the things that nested in the ruined keep when its lord went to ash, the marakai is the one the surviving servants would not name aloud. It is no mere beast: a horned demon of the upper air, drawn to the broken shrine where the castle's old prayers once rose, now feeding on the dread it stirs. By day it folds into the rafters above the altar, indistinguishable from the carved gargoyles; by night it drops on a screaming downbeat of wings that scatters torches and drives the faithful to their knees. Folk of the valley swear it was bound to the shrine by some pact older than the castle's master, made to ward the threshold and turned cruel in its long vigil. It hunts on the wing, seizing prey in its talons and casting them from a killing height onto the flagstones below. Where the blue votive fire still burns, the marakai will not be far, watchful, patient, and pitiless.
Run Marakai in Sixty Seconds
- It flies, so own the vertical. 60 ft. fly speed means it dictates range; it opens from above with Dread Wingbeat (DC 14 Str or prone) and only commits to melee against prone targets.
- Open with the wingbeat, then pile attacks on one prone body. Gore + two Claws is ~39 damage; aim it at whoever the party most needs standing.
- Kill-priority: ranged control and the healer. Spells that ground it (banishment, hold, polymorph) or yank it down end the fight fast, but Magic Resistance gives it the edge on those saves.
- When bloodied, it grabs and climbs. Expect Snatch and Drop on an isolated PC, watch the falling damage and the action-economy hit of a rescue.
- Three ways to run it: shrine guardian that drops when the altar is desecrated; aerial harasser softening the party before the real boss; or a bound warden using the companion sheet to defend an ally.
Marakai
Large fiend (demon), chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEMagic Resistance. The marakai has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Dread Wingbeat. Signature. When the marakai uses its wings to lift off or descend on its turn, each creature within 10 ft. of it must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone as the storm of its pinions slams down. Creatures that fail by 5 or more are also pushed 10 ft. away.
Actions
Multiattack. The marakai makes one Gore attack and two Claw attacks.
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d12 + 4) piercing damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Snatch and Drop. Bonus Action. Against a creature of size Medium or smaller it has grappled or hit with both Claws this turn, the marakai may fly up to half its speed carrying that creature, then release it; a dropped creature takes falling damage as normal.
A horned, leather-winged fiend coils above the castle's shattered shrine, its scaled hide caught between hoarfrost blue and ember gold as the votive flame gutters beneath it.
Marakai, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEWarden's Vigil (signature). While within 30 ft. of the creature it is bound to protect, the bound marakai and that creature each gain a +2 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks and have advantage on Perception checks to notice ambushes.
Actions
Rending Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage.
Reactions
Sheltering Stoop. When an ally it can see within 10 ft. is hit by an attack, the bound marakai folds a wing over them, granting +3 AC against that attack; if the attack then misses, the marakai may move 5 ft. without provoking.
Bound by an old shrine-pact rather than malice, this marakai shadows its charge from the rooftops, dropping only to scatter those who would do its ward harm.
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 from the air with Dread Wingbeat to knock the front line prone, then Gore the strongest melee before it can stand. Use Snatch and Drop on a lone caster to peel them off the group. Pair it with a swarm of bats or zombies so the party can't simply focus it down.
Lead with Dread Wingbeat over the cluster, then Multiattack the prone target that hits hardest (kill-priority: the healer or the heaviest striker). When bloodied, retreat to altitude and use Snatch and Drop to haul a softer PC away from rescue. This is an add-on flyer, not a solo boss, run it alongside the castle's vampire or as the shrine's guardian during a bigger fight.
Treat it as elite air support for a flagship threat, never alone. Open with Dread Wingbeat to scatter the line, then Gore and Claw the controller who could ground it. Pair it with a bigger threat or its lair's brazier-summoned minions so its hit-and-fly pattern stays punishing.
Put Marakai 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 Marakai?
Marakai is built at CR 6 (2,300 XP) in its native Tier 2 form: AC 16, 127 HP, +7 to hit, save DC 14. Scaled stat lines for Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 3 (~CR 11) are provided so you can drop it into a level 1-4 or 11-15 table without rebuilding it.
Can Marakai be a companion or ally?
Yes. The companion sheet ("Marakai, Bound") reframes it as a shrine-pact warden that shields a charge: ~76 HP, AC 15, Rending Claws, the Sheltering Stoop reaction, and the Warden's Vigil aura. It's a bodyguard flyer, not a damage engine.
Is Marakai a solo boss?
No. It lacks legendary actions and the action economy to stand alone against a four-PC party, a flier that wins by harassment, not attrition. Run it as an add-on to a flagship threat (the castle's vampire lord, say) or as the guardian of its ruined shrine.
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 Marakai 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