Plague Golem
Plague Golem — The Encounter
The walking pestilence, a mountain of plague-swollen flesh · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Plague Golem
Where pestilence is left to fester and the dead go unburied, the rot itself may learn to walk. Folk who survived the great dying speak of a thing assembled from the plague's leavings, a heaving golem of grave-soil and corpse-fat in which a thousand small sicknesses dwell as one will. It does not hunger and it does not tire; it merely spreads, for spreading is the only purpose its makers stitched into it. Some name it the wrath of an offended heaven, a punishment loosed upon a faithless city; others swear a cult of the corruption-bringer raised it from a charnel pit with chanted vows and stolen breath. Wherever it shambles, wells turn black, livestock bloat and burst, and the strong sicken before the weak. Fire is the only mercy that touches it, for flame alone makes the swarm within recoil and the great body falter.
Run Plague Golem in Sixty Seconds
- It is a slow, inescapable contagion, not a duelist — speed 20 ft. means it will never catch a runner, so it wins by anchoring an objective and forcing the party to come into the aura to stop it.
- Open with Vomit Plague if you have surprise or distance, planting the poisoned condition before melee, then lurch into the tightest cluster so Aura of Contagion ticks on as many PCs as possible.
- Kill-priority is the healer's job, and the golem knows it — Aura of Contagion stops failed-save targets from regaining hit points, so make the players choose between healing and standing in the rot.
- When bloodied, lean on legendary actions — Lurching Step to slide the aura onto back-line casters, then Reeking Slam (2 actions) to drop a wounded PC; Bursting Boil punishes anyone hacking at it in melee.
- Three ways to run it: the lonely plague-bringer guarding a poisoned well (solo boss), the spearhead of a cult procession (with Plagued Cultist adds), or a slow doom advancing on a town the PCs must evacuate before it arrives.
Plague Golem
Huge undead, neutral evil
CR 10 · 5,900 XP · GUIDELINEAura of Contagion. Signature. At the start of each of the golem's turns, every creature within 15 feet of it must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) poison damage and be poisoned until the start of the golem's next turn. A creature that fails this save by 5 or more also contracts a wasting sickness: until it finishes a long rest, it can't regain hit points and its hit point maximum is reduced by 7 (2d6) each time it ends its turn within the aura.
Festering Bulk. The golem is composed of teeming plague-flesh. Whenever it takes fire or radiant damage, the swarm of corruption inside it recoils and it can't use its Aura of Contagion at the start of its next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. The golem makes two attacks: one with its Slam and one with its Corpse Maul.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 21 (3d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) poison damage.
Corpse Maul. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be knocked prone by the diseased heap of bodies.
Vomit Plague (Recharge 5–6). The golem heaves a flood of rotting filth in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw, taking 36 (8d8) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is poisoned for 1 minute and can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns to end the effect.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Bursting Boil. Reaction. When the golem takes piercing or slashing damage from a creature within 10 feet, a pustule ruptures. That creature must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take 9 (2d8) poison damage as putrid bile sprays over it.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Lurching Step. The golem moves up to half its speed. Its Aura of Contagion deals damage to any creature it moves within 15 feet of, even outside its turn.
Reeking Slam (Costs 2 Actions). The golem makes one Slam attack.
Spew Maggots. The golem coughs writhing maggots at one creature it can see within 30 feet. That creature must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) poison damage and have disadvantage on its next attack roll as it claws the vermin away.
A mountain of swollen, weeping flesh, its bloated trunk split by toothed maws that grin where no mouth should be, crowned with a horned and snarling face. In one fist it drags a maul fashioned from the impaled heads of its victims.
Plague Golem, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINECarrier (signature). Allied creatures within 10 feet of Plague Golem are immune to disease and have advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition. Plague Golem itself is immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.
Actions
Plague Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.
Reactions
Shield of Filth. When an ally within 10 feet is hit by an attack, Plague Golem lurches between them, reducing the damage by 9 (2d8) as it takes the blow on its rotting bulk.
A lesser scion of the great plague, bound to a warden's command, it shambles ahead to soak punishment and carry sickness to whatever its master points at.
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 by lurching into the densest knot of the party so its aura starts ticking immediately, then Slam the front-liner. At this tier treat Vomit Plague as a fight-ender saved for when two or more PCs cluster. Run it as a slow lair guardian, not a chaser; pair it with a faster minion so the party can't simply kite it to death.
Wade in and Multiattack the squishiest reachable target; the aura punishes anyone who lingers to heal. Kill-priority is its own: it stops the party's healer from working with Aura of Contagion, so the party must break LOS or burn it with fire. Hold Vomit Plague until three or more are caught in the cone.
Open at range with Vomit Plague to seed the poisoned condition, then lurch in and let the aura grind the formation. Use legendary Lurching Step to drag the aura onto the back-line casters between turns, and Reeking Slam to finish a bloodied PC. Threaten the whole party at once: it is a true solo boss whose action economy and aura answer a 4-PC party, but it dies fast to fire, so reward players who bring flame.
Put Plague Golem 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 Plague Golem?
Its home build is CR 10 (5,900 XP), a Tier 3 solo boss for parties of levels 11–15. Scaled-down CR 2 (Tier 1) and CR 6 (Tier 2) stat blocks are provided so you can field the same monster against lower-level parties without changing how it plays.
Can Plague Golem be a companion or ally?
The golem itself is a mindless engine of pestilence, but a lesser bound scion, Pestis, can serve as an ally or summoned guardian — a disease-immune bruiser that shields allies, soaks hits, and carries sickness to enemies on its master's command.
How do you actually beat it?
Don't stand in the aura, and bring fire or radiant damage — either one makes the swarm inside recoil and shuts off Aura of Contagion for a round, buying the party room to heal. Spread out so Vomit Plague's cone catches only one target, and use ranged attacks to whittle the slow, 20-ft.-speed body down before it reaches your casters.
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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