Mi-go
Mi-go — The Encounter
Winged fungus from the outer dark, harvester of living minds · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Mi-go
They are not beasts, nor demons, nor any spawn of this world. The grimoires of mad astronomers name them the Fungi from the Outer Dark, a race grown rather than born, who cross the gulf between stars on wings that should not bear them through airless void. Where they alight, livestock vanish and shepherds wake to find a loved one staring, hollow and obedient. The mi-go covet not flesh but thought. With instruments of cold metal they peel the mind from the skull and seal it, living and aware, within a humming cylinder no larger than a lantern, that they may carry a captive's reason across the dark to interrogate it at leisure. Mountain folk who have glimpsed them speak of a droning hum on still nights and of carved black stones left at the tree line as warnings. To bargain with a mi-go is to be unmade by inches; to be promised the stars is to be promised a jar.
Run Mi-go in Sixty Seconds
- It hunts minds, not lives. The mi-go wants to grapple a victim and fly them clear to seal them in a cylinder, so a grappled PC dragged airborne is the real emergency, not the hit points.
- Open from above with the Stinging Proboscis to poison your most fragile target, then grapple with Surgeon's Claws next round.
- Kill-priority for the party is reach. It is fragile when focused but slippery; ranged attackers and a way to ground it (net, web, hold) end it fast.
- When bloodied, use Drifting Withdrawal to disengage and circle, picking the moment for a clean grab rather than trading blows.
- Three ways to run it: a lone surgeon stalking a wilderness party, a two-to-three squad backing a larger horror, or a full flight defending a fungal lair (dim light gives them nonmagical resistance).
Mi-go
Medium aberration, lawful evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEVoid-Born Resilience. The mi-go ignores the effects of the vacuum and extreme cold of the outer dark, and it does not require air. It has advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Brain Cylinder. Signature. The mi-go carries a humming metal cylinder used to extract and store a living mind. When it reduces a creature to 0 hit points with its Surgeon's Claws, it may instead choose to capture the victim: the target is stable but paralyzed, and if it remains in the mi-go's grasp for 1 minute, its consciousness is sealed in the cylinder (a greater restoration or comparable magic can restore it). A captured creature's body falls limp.
Actions
Multiattack. The mi-go makes two attacks: one with its Surgeon's Claws and one with its Stinging Proboscis.
Surgeon's Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (3d8 + 3) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14) if it is Medium or smaller.
Stinging Proboscis. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d4 + 3) piercing damage plus 9 (2d8) poison damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Drifting Withdrawal. Reaction. When a creature the mi-go can see ends its turn within 5 feet of it, the mi-go can fly up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
A nightmare of pinkish fungal chitin, membranous bat-like wings, and a head crowned with writhing sensory feelers, the mi-go hovers with surgical patience, one clawed limb cradling a softly droning brain cylinder. It came from a world that orbits no sun we know.
Mi-go, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEBorrowed Knowledge (signature). Once per short rest, the bound mind can grant an ally within 30 feet advantage on one Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma check or saving throw by whispering forgotten truths.
Actions
Psychic Lash. Ranged Spell Attack: +5 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (3d8) psychic damage.
Reactions
Mind's Shield. When an ally within 30 feet fails an Intelligence saving throw, the bound mind can let them reroll it.
A mind freed from the mi-go's cylinder but never quite returned whole, it rides with the party as a disembodied voice, grateful and uncanny, dreading the droning hum that means its old keepers have followed.
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 the proboscis to poison your most fragile PC, then drift back out of reach. If the party clusters, the mi-go grapples a straggler with its claws and tries to fly off with the prize. Run it as the surgical predator of a hive, never alone, pairing it with lesser horrors that pin the front line.
Open by Multiattacking the squishiest spellcaster, grappling them with the claws. Kill-priority is whoever can answer it from range, since it wants to drag a victim clear and seal them in the cylinder. When bloodied it disengages with Drifting Withdrawal and circles for a clean grab. Field two or three together as a harvest squad backing a larger horror.
Pair it with a bigger threat or run a whole flight of them in a fungal lair where dim light hands them their nonmagical resistance. Open against the highest-Intelligence PC, grapple, and withdraw toward the brain cylinders staged in the back. Do not run this as a solo boss; it is a precise harvester, lethal in numbers, fragile when focused.
Put Mi-go 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 Mi-go?
Its home tier is CR 6 (2,300 XP) for levels 5-10, with an Armor Class of 16 and 120 hit points. Scaled stat lines are provided for tier 1 (levels 1-4) and tier 3 (levels 11-15) so you can drop it into any table.
Can Mi-go be a companion or ally?
Not the mi-go itself, but a mind it once captured can be. The included companion, the Subject in the Cylinder, is a freed consciousness that rides with the party, lending borrowed knowledge and a psychic lash while dreading the day its old keepers return.
Is the Mi-go meant to be a solo boss?
No. It is an add-on harvester built to fight in numbers or beside a flagship horror. It lacks legendary actions and folds quickly under focused fire, so use it as a squad or pair it with a bigger threat rather than a one-creature encounter.
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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