Nocturnix
Nocturnix — The Encounter
Horned terror of the sleepless dark, hide of staring eyes · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Nocturnix
Where the waking world frays into dream, the Nocturnix prowls. Old grimoires name it among the night-terrors that the unquiet dead drag back from the threshold of sleep, a revenant grown monstrous on a hundred years of stolen slumber. Its horns are said to be older than the body that bears them, harvested from beasts it gored in nightmares it forced upon the living. The eyes scattered across its flesh are not its own; each is taken from a sleeper who never woke, and each still weeps for the dreamer it abandoned. Villages near its haunts learn to fear the quiet hour before dawn, when livestock are found staring and rigid, hearts stopped, faces frozen in soundless screams. It does not eat flesh so much as it feeds on the terror that precedes death, and it will harry a single victim through the dark for nights on end, never letting them rest, until exhaustion delivers them whole into its claws.
Run Nocturnix in Sixty Seconds
- Aura first. The moment Nocturnix is within 15 ft. of clustered PCs, everyone there saves vs DC 14 Wis or eats psychic damage and attacks at disadvantage, so it WANTS to be surrounded.
- Open with a Gore-shove. Pick the front-line tank, knock them prone, then Claw twice; prone targets are easy follow-up for minions.
- Kill-priority: the healer/controller. The aura turns 0 HP into unconsciousness, so a party that loses its support starts dropping for keeps.
- When bloodied, use the dark. It has darkvision 120 ft. and All-Seeing Hide, so retreat into shadow where the party can't see and Nightmare Lurch back in on stragglers.
- Three ways to run it: a lone village night-terror (T1), a pack hunter herding one victim (T2), or a lieutenant in a dream-lair beside a bigger horror (T3) - never truly solo against a sharp party.
Nocturnix
Large aberration, chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAll-Seeing Hide. The countless eyes studding Nocturnix's flesh cannot be blinded or surprised. It has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and on saving throws against being blinded, and attackers gain no benefit from being unseen by it.
Aura of Night Terrors. Signature. Each creature that starts its turn within 15 feet of Nocturnix must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or take 7 (2d6) psychic damage and have disadvantage on its next attack roll as waking nightmares cloud its sight. A creature reduced to 0 hit points by this damage falls unconscious rather than dying.
Actions
Multiattack. Nocturnix makes one Gore attack and two Claw attacks.
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 5) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be pushed 10 feet away and knocked prone.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6 + 5) slashing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Nightmare Lurch. Reaction (recharge 5-6). When a creature Nocturnix can see ends its turn within 15 feet, Nocturnix moves up to half its speed toward that creature without provoking opportunity attacks and may make one Claw attack against it.
A towering horror crowned with two great curling ivory horns, its blue-grey hide pocked with clusters of unblinking eyes that follow every dreamer. The fanged maw and clawed limbs mark it as a thing that hunts in the borderlands of sleep.
Nocturnix, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEDreamwalk (signature). Nocturnix can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, taking 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside one. While obscured by darkness it has advantage on Stealth checks.
Actions
Soporific Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) psychic damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or have its speed halved until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Cradle the Falling. When an ally within 10 feet drops to 0 hit points, Nocturnix can move up to its speed toward that ally; if it reaches them, that ally is stable.
A fragment of the terror Nocturnix sheds, Nocturnix drifts in its wake as a half-formed wraith of sleep, guarding the dreamer it cannot quite forget.
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 the Aura of Night Terrors by charging into the cluster, then Gore the toughest melee fighter to knock them prone. Kill-priority is whoever the party leans on for healing, since the aura's unconsciousness can snowball. Pair it with a swarm of weaker undead or beasts so the prone targets get punished.
Open by wading into the densest cluster so the aura tags as many as possible, then Gore-shove the front-liner prone and Claw twice. Hold Nightmare Lurch for whoever steps clear to cast or shoot. When bloodied, fall back into darkness (it sees fine, they don't) and pick off the most isolated PC.
Run it as a lieutenant in a nightmare lair, not alone, a higher-tier party out-acts a single brute. Open in melee to soak the cluster with the aura, Gore to scatter formations, and use Nightmare Lurch to chase fleeing casters. Pair it with a bigger dream-horror or several Lull wraiths so the aura's disadvantage actually bites.
Put Nocturnix 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 Nocturnix?
Nocturnix is CR 6 (2,300 XP) at its native Tier 2, built for parties of levels 5-10. Scaled stat blocks for Tier 1 (levels 1-4) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) are provided in the tiers table so you can drop it into almost any game.
Can Nocturnix be a companion or ally?
Not as itself, it is a chaotic-evil night-terror that feeds on dread. But the bound dream-fragment Lull (AC 13, 76 HP) is provided as an allied wraith with a sleep-touch attack and a reaction that stabilizes a falling ally, for groups who want a haunting companion.
Is Nocturnix a boss or an add-on?
It is an add-on brute, not a solo boss. It lacks legendary actions, so a full party will out-act it on its own; run it alongside minions or a flagship dream-horror so its Aura of Night Terrors and Nightmare Lurch reaction stay threatening.
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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