Mutated Forest Stag
Mutated Forest Stag — The Encounter
Thorn-Crowned Hart of the Wild Hunt's wake · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Mutated Forest Stag
In the after-quiet of the Wild Hunt, when the host has thundered through a wood and gone, something is always left behind: a stag the hounds could not run down, marked instead by the green that follows the Hunt. Its rack no longer sheds with the seasons but grows ever inward, curling upon itself in a thorned coil that drinks rain like a briar. Foresters call it the Thorn-Crowned, and they do not loose arrows at it, for iron-shy and fey-touched, it answers steel with a tide of root and bramble. It is not malicious so much as wholly of the wood now, and the wood does not forgive trespass. Charcoal-burners who fell the wrong oak find their tracks back to the road grown over in a single night, and at the heart of the new thicket waits a great horned shape, breathing slow, antlers wet with sap and old blood. Offer it the first of a kill and it may simply watch you go. Offer it nothing, and the forest keeps you.
Run Mutated Forest Stag in Sixty Seconds
- Hold: keep the stag mobile — its whole game is Charge in, gore-and-stomp, then leap out. Never let it get pinned in a corner where it can't run.
- Open: first turn, move 20+ feet straight at the softest PC and Gore for the prone knockdown; a prone caster is a caster who isn't casting.
- Kill-priority: it has no loyalty — it gores whatever just hurt it or whatever is squishiest in reach. Thorn-Crown Bloom means melee PCs bleed just for hitting it.
- When bloodied: stop trading blows. Bounding Leap to the tree line each round, root-slow the fastest chaser, and make the party come to you through the brambles.
- Three ways to run it: lone ambush predator in a corrupted wood; pack anchor leading lesser fey through difficult terrain; or herald-beast that softens a PC for a flagship boss.
Mutated Forest Stag
Large fey (shapechanger), neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINECharge. If the stag moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with a Gore attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 9 (2d8) piercing damage and must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Thorn-Crown Bloom. Signature. The blighted antlers seethe with hooked bramble. A creature that hits the stag with a melee attack while within 5 feet takes 4 (1d8) piercing damage as thorns lash back, and the first time on a turn the stag damages a creature, jagged roots erupt from the soil under it; that creature's speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of the stag's next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. The stag makes one Gore attack and one Hooves attack.
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d10 + 4) piercing damage.
Hooves. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Bounding Leap. Reaction, when a creature the stag can see ends its turn within 10 feet: the stag moves up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
A great hart whose antlers have warped into a heart-shaped tangle of living bramble and grasping thorn-vine, its hide rippling like wind-stirred wood-grain. Where it treads, the loam knots into snares.
Mutated Forest Stag, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEThicket-Step (signature). The fawn ignores difficult terrain made of plants and can move through any space occupied by undergrowth as if it were not there, leaving snaring roots in its wake (the space becomes difficult terrain until the end of its next turn).
Actions
Antler Jab. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) piercing damage.
Reactions
Tangle-Guard. Reaction, when an ally within 10 feet is hit by a melee attack: roots snag the attacker, who must succeed on a DC 13 Strength save or have its speed reduced to 0 until the end of its next turn.
A half-grown stag still soft with new bramble, bound to its keeper by the green that touched its dam. It leads pursuers into the thorns and lets the thicket do the rest.
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 20-foot Charge into the front-line PC to knock it prone and split the party. If the party clusters in undergrowth, lead with Thorn-Crown Bloom to shred melee retaliators, then bound away with Bounding Leap. Pair it with a fey trickster or sprite swarm so its prone target gets focus-fired.
Open with a Charge gore on the squishiest reachable PC, then Multiattack to keep one target prone and rooted. Kill-priority: punish whoever swings in melee via Thorn-Crown Bloom, then Bounding Leap out of the kill-box at end of turn. With minions or a lair full of bramble walls, it kites the party through difficult terrain while archers and casters pick them off.
Run it as a herald-beast of a bigger threat, never solo. Open by Charging the controller or healer to prone-lock them, Multiattack to keep root-slow stacked, and use Bounding Leap to deny opportunity attacks. Pair it with a fey hag coven or a treant-class lair guardian so the stag isolates a PC while the bigger threat lands the killing blows.
Put Mutated Forest Stag 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 Mutated Forest Stag?
Its home tier is Tier 2 (CR 6, 2,300 XP) — AC 15, 119 HP, +6 to hit, save DC 14. Use the Tier 1 line (CR ~2) for levels 1-4 or the Tier 3 line (CR ~11) for levels 11-15; traits stay identical, only the numbers move.
Can Mutated Forest Stag be a companion or ally?
Yes — use the Bramble-Fawn, Bound companion block (AC 13, 71 HP). It's a fey beast bound to a keeper, leading enemies into thorns with Thicket-Step and locking down attackers with Tangle-Guard rather than trading damage head-on.
Is the stag a true boss I can run solo?
No. It's an add-on threat with native-tier numbers and no legendary actions — a four-PC party out-acts it quickly. Run it with minions, a bramble lair, or as a herald for a bigger flagship monster.
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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