Nyxclaw
Nyxclaw — The Encounter
The single-eyed tusk-fiend that drags the dying into night · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Nyxclaw
Of the spirit called Nyxclaw the old wards say little, for those who saw it close were carried off and not heard from again. It is named in the marginalia of a plague-monk's psalter as a devourer that walks at the edge of lantern-light, a one-eyed thing crowned in tusks, drawn to fields where the dying lie too weak to flee. It does not parley and it does not fear; pain only quickens its hunger. The monk records that it seizes a victim in either claw and drags them backward into the dark, and that whole watch-fires were found cold and empty by dawn, the snow churned and the men simply gone. Salt and silver turn its hide as readily as iron, and so the wise do not fight it but flee it, scattering so its single eye cannot follow every fleeing shape at once. Where it hunts, name the place cursed and do not return.
Run Nyxclaw in Sixty Seconds
- What it is a single-eyed tusked brute, pure melee: it charges, grapples with both claws, and drags victims off into the dark. No spells, no ranged, no flight.
- Open with Goring Charge at the squishiest target 20+ ft. away: prone on a failed DC 15 Str save, then two Claws to grapple and lock it down.
- Kill-priority whatever it has grabbed, then casters; Single-Eyed Fury gives it advantage whenever the party splits up out of its sightline, so it WANTS you scattered.
- When bloodied it stops trading blows and uses Drag Into Night every chance to haul a captive away from the healers and into open ground.
- Three ways to run it (1) lone bruiser pin-and-drag, (2) bodyguard for a fragile caster boss, (3) lead beast of a tusked pack swarming a chokepoint.
Nyxclaw
Large fiend (demon), chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEGoring Charge. If Nyxclaw moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with a tusk attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 9 (2d8) piercing damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Single-Eyed Fury. Signature. Nyxclaw has only one eye and is easily blinded, but its rage burns hotter for it. While it can see fewer than half the hostile creatures it could at the start of its last turn, it has advantage on attack rolls. The first time each turn it reduces a creature to 0 hit points, it may move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.
Actions
Multiattack. Nyxclaw makes one Tusk attack and two Claw attacks.
Tusk. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) piercing damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6 + 5) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15) if it is a Large or smaller creature and Nyxclaw does not already have two creatures grappled.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Drag Into Night. Reaction, when a creature Nyxclaw is grappling tries to move away: Nyxclaw moves up to half its speed, pulling the grappled creature with it, and the creature has disadvantage on its next attack roll before the end of its next turn.
A hulking teal-skinned brute of warty hide and bone, Nyxclaw lumbers on bowed legs, a forest of curved tusks bristling from skull and shoulders, one furnace-red eye glaring above a fang-crammed maw and claws longer than short swords.
Nyxclaw, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Hound of the Dark (signature). When the bound Nyxclaw hits a creature an ally has hit since the start of your last turn, the target takes an extra 5 (1d10) piercing damage.
Actions
Tusk. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage.
Reactions
Shield-Beast. When an ally within 5 feet is hit by an attack, Nyxclaw shoulders in, reducing the damage by 1d10 and shoving the attacker 5 feet back on its next turn.
Collared in cold iron and answering to one master alone, the bound Nyxclaw is a battering ram of muscle and tusk that keeps its handler alive by burying everything else.
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 Goring Charge into the nearest squishy target to knock it prone, then claw-grapple and hold it in the brute's reach. Kill-priority: whoever it has grappled, since prone-plus-grappled means the party must come to it. Pair it with a bigger threat or a pack of lesser minions; a lone Nyxclaw is a wrecking ball, not a campaign villain.
Charge the back line turn one (Goring Charge knocks prone, then two claws grapple), and use Drag Into Night to haul a captive away from healers. Focus the lowest-AC caster; Single-Eyed Fury means splitting up actually helps you, so make the party spread to break line of sight. Best run as muscle beside a controller or summoner that pins the party in place for it to reach.
Lead with the charge, grapple two targets at once, and drag them into the lair's hazards or its minions' kill zone. Prioritize anyone who blinds, banishes, or restrains it, since Single-Eyed Fury punishes a party that clusters. Do not run it solo at this tier; pair it with a bigger threat and a swarm so its grapples actually matter against a high-level party that out-acts it.
Put Nyxclaw 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 Nyxclaw?
Nyxclaw is built as a CR 6 (2,300 XP) Large fiend at its native Tier 2, tuned for parties of levels 5-10. The card also gives drop-in Tier 1 (levels 1-4) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) stat lines so you can field the same monster at your table's level without rebuilding it.
Can Nyxclaw be a companion or ally?
Yes. The companion block, Nyxclaw, Bound, presents it as an iron-collared war-beast at roughly 60 percent of the adversary's hit points, with a Pack Hound damage rider, a Tusk attack, and a Shield-Beast reaction that soaks hits for its handler. Run it as a tank-flavored ally that controls the front line rather than a damage dealer.
How do I keep Nyxclaw from feeling like a single sack of hit points?
Lean on its grapple-and-drag kit, not just its attacks. Use Goring Charge to set up prone, claw-grapple two PCs, and spend Drag Into Night to peel a captive away from the party's support. Because Single-Eyed Fury rewards it when the party can't all be seen, force the players to scatter and watch the brute snowball.
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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