Winged Ape
Winged Ape — The Encounter
Leather-winged terror that drops from cliff and cloud · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Winged Ape
Travellers of the high passes speak of the Winged Ape in lowered voices, for it is no honest beast of forest or field. Where the old dragon-blood seeped into stone, the lesser brutes that drank from those tainted pools are said to have changed, sprouting the leathery sails of their masters while keeping the cunning fists of the ape. It nests in cliff hollows and the broken towers of forgotten keeps, lining its lair with the picked bones of goats, mules, and the occasional unwary climber. It hunts by ambush, gliding silent on a downdraft to seize prey in one crushing grip, then carrying it aloft to dash it against the rocks below. Hunters who have survived its attentions warn that it strikes the strongest of a party first, dragging them skyward where their companions cannot follow. Burn its nest, they say, or it will simply return at dusk and take another.
Run Winged Ape in Sixty Seconds
- Stay airborne. The ape lives and dies on its fly speed — keep it 20+ ft. up between turns so melee can't pin it and it always has runway for an Aerial Pounce dive.
- Open with the dive. Fly 20 ft. straight at a target, Slam to knock prone (DC 15 Str), then free Bite as a bonus action — that's the burst that justifies the CR.
- Kill-priority: the snatch target. Grapple the lowest-AC caster or healer and Snatch and Fly them up out of reach; the party must choose between rescuing them and fighting.
- When bloodied, drop the grappling game — it's losing the fight, so it stops carrying prey and either brawls full Multiattack or breaks off and flies for its nest to come back at dusk.
- Three ways to run it: a lone ambush predator on a mountain road; a matched pair relaying a snatched victim between them; or the airborne muscle escorting a dragon-blooded boss.
Winged Ape
Large monstrosity, chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAerial Pounce. If the ape flies at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a Slam attack on the same turn, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the ape can make one Bite attack against it as a bonus action.
Brute. A melee weapon attack deals one extra die of its damage when the ape hits with it (included in the attacks).
Actions
Multiattack. The ape makes two Slam attacks. It can replace one Slam with a Bite.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (4d6+5) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15) if it is a Medium or smaller creature.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+5) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Snatch and Fly. As a bonus action, if the ape has a Medium or smaller creature grappled, it flies up to half its fly speed, carrying the grappled creature with it. The creature can use its action to attempt to escape.
A slab of corded muscle under a bat's nightmare wings, this beast crouches on a fan of crystal shards, lips peeled back over a hunting snarl. It climbs sheer rock by day and falls out of the dark by night.
Winged Ape, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEUpdraft Glide (signature). Winged Ape ignores difficult terrain while flying and does not provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy's reach.
Actions
Raking Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage.
Reactions
Wing Buffet. When a creature within 5 feet hits an ally, Winged Ape beats its wings; the attacker must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be pushed 10 feet away.
A tamed cliff-brute, half-trusting and wholly dangerous, that answers a handler's whistle and carries them over the chasms others must climb.
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 an Aerial Pounce dive to knock the front-liner prone, then Bite. If the party clusters in the open, glide in, grapple the lightest-armored caster and lift off so the rest can't reach them. Pair it with a few snipers or a bigger flyer so the ground party splits its attention.
Open by diving on the squishiest target — Snatch and Fly carries them 30 ft. up where melee can't help. Kill-priority is whoever can drag flyers down (web, ranged, polearm reach); take them first. When bloodied it stops grappling and just brawls; pair it with a dragon-blooded boss as its airborne enforcer.
Run it as a pack of two or three over a chasm lair so they relay-snatch a target between them and out of healer range. Open with a synchronized dive on separated PCs. Pair it with a bigger flying threat — alone, three high-level players will ground a lone ape fast, so it earns its keep as minion/lair support, not a solo.
Put Winged Ape 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 Winged Ape?
Its home tier is CR 6 (2,300 XP), built for level 5-10 parties. Use the Tier 1 line (~CR 2) to drop it into a low-level game or the Tier 3 line (~CR 11) to threaten a high-level party — the traits stay identical, only AC, HP, to-hit, save DC, and damage shift.
Can Winged Ape be a companion or ally?
Yes. Use the companion block for Skyfang, Bound — a tamed cliff-brute (AC 14, 75 HP) that glides past terrain, rakes with its claws, and buffets attackers off its handler. It works as a mount or animal ally rather than a controlled minion of the wild version.
How do I stop it carrying my players off?
Deny it altitude. Ranged attackers, reach weapons, grapples, and effects like web or hold can pin it before it lifts off, and a grappled creature can spend its action to escape (DC 15) before the ape climbs out of rescue range. Fighting it in a cave or low-ceiling room removes its best trick entirely.
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
Played Winged Ape at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
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