A-Mi-Kuk
A-Mi-Kuk — The Encounter
The slime-hide horror that drags drowners through the ice · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is A-Mi-Kuk
The hunters of the long dark speak of A-Mi-Kuk only in whispers, lest the saying of its name draw it up through the seal-hole. It dwells in the black water beneath the floe and in the wet ground beneath the snow, and it does not hunt for hunger alone but for the dragging-down itself. They say a kayak that tips for no wind has felt its arm; that a child who wanders the shore-ice and is never found has gone into its mouth without a cry, for its grip steals the voice before the scream can climb the throat. Shamans warn that those it takes are pulled neither up nor down but sideways, into the slime, where they neither drown nor die but are kept. To kill it one must speak its name backward while striking, or so the elders teach, though none who tried have returned to confirm the telling. It can be wounded; it cannot be hurried.
Run A-Mi-Kuk in Sixty Seconds
- What it is: a Large amphibious grappler whose whole job is to seize one PC, silence them, and drag them underwater or under the snow where the rest of the party cannot easily follow.
- Open with: Lashing Arm (15 ft. reach) on the backline caster or healer, then start dragging immediately. The grip blocks speech, verbal spells, and healing.
- Kill-priority for the party: free the grappled ally first or kill the beast fast. Once it sinks underwater with Sink Away it becomes a slog to chase, so burst it before it submerges.
- When bloodied: it stops trading and turtles, using Sink Away every round to halve damage and vanish, surfacing only to drag its captive deeper.
- Three ways to run it: (1) shoreline ambush from a seal-hole, one grab then flee; (2) the kidnapper in a larger fight, paired with Sedna or an Ahklut; (3) a rescue clock where the captive drowns in 3 rounds unless freed.
A-Mi-Kuk
Large aberration, chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. The A-Mi-Kuk can breathe air and water.
Drowning Grip. Signature. A creature grappled by the A-Mi-Kuk cannot speak, cast spells with verbal components, or regain hit points until the grapple ends. While the A-Mi-Kuk holds a creature with its lashing arm, it can drag that creature beneath water or snow as part of its own movement, and the creature is restrained as well as grappled.
Slime Hide. Any creature that grapples the A-Mi-Kuk or hits it with a melee weapon attack from within 5 ft. must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity save or have its hands and weapon coated in clinging slime, giving disadvantage on its next attack roll before the end of its next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. The A-Mi-Kuk makes one Bite attack and one Lashing Arm attack. If it is already grappling a creature with its arm, it can make a second Bite against that creature instead of the arm attack.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage. If the target is a creature grappled by the A-Mi-Kuk, the bite is a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Lashing Arm. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15). The A-Mi-Kuk can grapple only one creature at a time with its arm.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Sink Away (Reaction). When the A-Mi-Kuk takes damage while in water, snow, or silt, it can submerge fully, halving the damage and becoming heavily obscured until the start of its next turn. It cannot use this if it is grappling a creature it has not yet dragged under.
A bloated, scale-warted horror hunched on amphibian feet, its tusked maw slung low and one boneless arm trailing across the ice like a drowning rope.
A-Mi-Kuk, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPact of the Drowned (signature). A-Mi-Kuk is immune to the A-Mi-Kuk's Slime Hide and Drowning Grip, and has advantage on checks made to free an ally the beast has grappled.
Actions
Bone Harpoon. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) piercing damage, and a creature dragged underwater takes no extra damage from being submerged until the start of its next turn.
Reactions
Cut the Line. When an ally within 5 ft. is grappled by an aberration, A-Mi-Kuk can sever the grip, ending the grapple and pushing the grappler 5 ft. away.
A scarred ice-shaman who survived the slime and now hunts what once held it, harpoon greased with seal-fat against the clinging hide.
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 the lone caster or healer and dragging them toward open water. Keep the grappled victim silenced and away from the party. Pair it with an ice-dragon brood or seal-hunter raiders so the table has a bigger threat to split focus.
Open with Lashing Arm on the squishiest target, then Bite to chew the grapple-locked victim with its expanded crit range. When bloodied, Sink Away after each hit to bleed the party's actions chasing it. This is the drowner piece, not the boss; run it beside Sedna or an Ahklut so the party cannot dogpile it.
Snatch the priority target turn one and burrow under the snow with them while the rest of the encounter presses. Use Sink Away to deny the party clean burst windows. As an add-on at this tier it should never be alone; it is the kidnapper, so give it a flagship boss to anchor the fight.
Put A-Mi-Kuk 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 A-Mi-Kuk?
Its home build is CR 6 (2,300 XP) for a Tier 2 party of levels 5-10. The same traits and actions scale down to roughly CR 2 for Tier 1 and up to about CR 11 for Tier 3; only the AC, HP, to-hit, save DC, and damage move. It is not solo_capable, so it has no legendary actions and keeps native-tier numbers rather than dropping a band.
Can A-Mi-Kuk be a companion or ally?
Not the beast itself. Its companion entry, Saqqaq the Slime-Marked, is a survivor-shaman ally built for the party: immune to the creature's grip and slime, able to harpoon dragged targets, and able to cut an ally free as a reaction. Use Saqqaq as a rescue-focused NPC or guide when running the A-Mi-Kuk.
Why is it an aberration and not a beast?
The render reads as a warped amphibian horror with a boneless lashing arm and a maw that steals the voice, and the lore frames it as something that pulls victims 'sideways into the slime' rather than simply eating them. That voice-stealing, will-bending wrongness is aberration territory, not a natural beast, which is why its grip silences spellcasting and blocks healing.
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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