Thaug
Thaug — The Encounter
The Eyed Mass that Crawled from the Outer Dark · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Thaug
It is written in the marginalia of the Hyborian wormwood codices that Thaug was no beast born of any honest womb, but a thing that seeped down from the spaces between the stars when the old gods slept. Where it crawls, the soil sours and the eyes of cattle weep blood, for the mass is hung all over with watching orbs that never close and never weep. The savants of fallen cities chained such horrors beneath their temples and fed them slaves, mistaking the creature's patient hunger for fealty; the cities are dust now, and Thaug yet crawls. Its tentacles can pluck a mounted knight from the saddle and fold him whole into the splitting mouth before his scream finds air. Sorcerers who gaze too long into its eyes return able to speak in a tongue no mortal throat should shape, and they speak of vast cold gulfs, and they do not stop speaking until they die.
Run Thaug in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the maw Thaug crawls slowly (20 ft.) but reaches 15 ft. with tentacles and grapples on a hit, so the board collapses inward fast; do not let two PCs get caught at once.
- Open with two Tentacle grapples on the front line, then Bite a held target; spend legendary actions on Withering Gaze against the healer to shrink their hit-point max.
- Kill-priority is whoever Thaug has grappled and dragged via Crawling Surge, because they are isolated from healing and next into the mouth.
- When bloodied surge into the back line, ignore opportunity attacks, and unleash Withering Gaze every round it can afford it.
- Three ways to run it solo terror in a sealed chamber, the lair-anchor amid a swarm of Spawnlings, or a slow apocalypse crawling toward a town the party must evacuate.
Thaug
Large aberration, chaotic evil
CR 10 · 5,900 XP · GUIDELINEAll-Seeing Hide. Thaug is studded with dozens of unblinking eyes. It has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks, cannot be surprised, and a creature hidden from it gains no benefit from being unseen while within 60 feet. It cannot be blinded.
Maddening Presence. Signature. The first time a creature ends its turn within 30 feet of Thaug and can see it, the creature must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or take 7 (2d6) psychic damage and have disadvantage on attack rolls until the start of its next turn as alien geometries swim across its mind.
Actions
Multiattack. Thaug makes one Bite attack and two Tentacle attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (3d10 + 5) piercing damage.
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 16) if it is a Large or smaller creature. Thaug has many tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Lashing Recoil. Reaction. When a creature within 15 feet hits Thaug with a melee attack, Thaug whips a tentacle at it. The attacker must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or take 9 (2d8) bludgeoning damage and be pushed 10 feet away.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Tentacle Lash. Thaug makes one Tentacle attack.
Withering Gaze (Costs 2 Actions). Thaug fixes its many eyes on one creature it can see within 60 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 18 (4d8) necrotic damage and have its hit point maximum reduced by that amount until it finishes a long rest.
Crawling Surge. Thaug moves up to its speed without provoking opportunity attacks, dragging any creatures it has grappled with it.
A bloated, eye-pocked hill of grey flesh hauls itself forward on a forest of spined, lashing tentacles, a fang-rimmed maw splitting its body wide as it crawled out of the outer dark.
Thaug, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINELesser Eyes (signature). The Thaug cannot be surprised and ignores the blinded condition. A creature hidden from it within 30 feet gains no benefit from being unseen.
Actions
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14).
Reactions
Interpose. When an ally within 5 feet is hit by an attack, the Thaug may take half the damage in its place.
A calf-sized bud of the greater mass, dragging itself loyally at its parent's flank, its scattering of eyes fixed always on whoever its keeper fears most.
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 lashing a tentacle at the front-line fighter and dragging them off the healer. If the party clusters, let Maddening Presence chip them turn after turn. Pair it with a bigger threat or a pack of cultists; do not run it alone at this tier.
Lead with two Tentacle grapples to lock down the heaviest hitters, then Bite whoever it has caught. Kill-priority is the grappled squishy; Crawling Surge drags them away from rescue. Strong as a mid-fight ambush in a lair full of lesser spawn.
Solo-capable centerpiece: open by grappling two PCs, then spend legendaries on Withering Gaze against the healer or top DPS to grind down their hit-point max. Lashing Recoil punishes melee, so it wants enemies to come to it. When bloodied, Crawling Surge into the casters and chew the one it already holds.
Put Thaug 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 Thaug?
Native CR 10 (Tier 3, ~5,900 XP). Because it carries a real action-economy kit (three legendary options plus the Lashing Recoil reaction) it is solo-capable, so its sheet sits one band below a pure CR 11 boss and still threatens a four-PC party of levels 11-15. Scaled stat blocks for Tiers 1 and 2 are provided.
Can Thaug be a companion or ally?
Not Thaug itself, it is a hostile cosmic abomination. A smaller Spawnling, Bound (AC 14, 97 HP) is offered as a leashed companion for a cultist patron or aberrant-pact character: it grapples, shares its parent's all-seeing eyes, and can interpose itself to soak a hit for an ally.
Why is Thaug an aberration and not a fiend?
Everything in the render reads alien rather than infernal: a bloated eye-studded mass, a fanged central maw, and a crown of spined grasping tentacles. That is the classic formless outer-dark horror of public-domain cosmic myth, which the SRD files under the aberration type with Deep Speech and telepathy.
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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