Adaro
Adaro — The Encounter
Sun-riding sea spirit that spears men through the shadow · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Adaro
Where the sea meets the morning sun, the adaro come riding the glare. The fisher-folk of the warm reefs know the signs: a calm too bright, a glitter on the water that does not move with the swell, and a flying-fish that leaps the wrong way. By that flying-fish the adaro send their malice ashore, a flake of sea-flame on its fin that fevers and kills whomever it touches. They are not gods but spirits of the rainbow-bridge that spans rain and surf, jealous of the breathing land. A drowned man's spite, the elders say, hardens into one of these crested hunters, half-fish and half-grudge. They herd the deep things before them, coaxing kraken and shark into the shallows to do the killing they would rather watch. Offerings of the first catch, poured back into the tide at dawn, may turn their bright eyes elsewhere for a season. They never forgive, only forget when fed.
Run Adaro in Sixty Seconds
- Bright light + water = danger. While the adaro stands in or beside water in bright light it has advantage and adds 2d6 poison on a hit. Fight it in shade or on dry land and you cut its teeth in half.
- Open with the spear. Throw the Barbed Spear from range turn one (it returns next turn), then close to gore. It wants to chip you from the water, not brawl.
- Kill-priority: split it from its kraken. Hau-the-Drowner grapples and drags victims into open water where the adaro is strongest. Drop the tentacles or break grapples first.
- When bloodied, it runs. Expect Sunward Dart and bonus-action Dash to flee into deep water and snipe. Block the waterline or it resets the fight.
- Three ways to run it: lone assassin picking off stragglers on a beach; paired raider with the kraken companion; or a whole school screening a sea-titan boss.
Adaro
Medium fey (sea spirit), neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. The adaro can breathe air and water.
Death by Sunbeam. The adaro travels along beams of light reflected on water. While standing in or adjacent to water in bright light, the adaro has advantage on attack rolls and can take the Dash action as a bonus action. A creature it hits in these conditions takes an extra 7 (2d6) poison damage as the spear-strike carries a flake of venomous sun-flame into the wound.
Tide Glide. The adaro ignores difficult terrain made of water, waves, or wet rock, and opportunity attacks against it have disadvantage while it is in or adjacent to water.
Actions
Multiattack. The adaro makes two attacks: one with its Barbed Spear and one with its Crest Gore.
Barbed Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+4) piercing damage, and on a hit at range the spear returns to the adaro's hand at the start of its next turn.
Crest Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) piercing damage. If the target is Large or smaller it must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone and pushed 10 ft. into the nearest water or open space.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Sunward Dart. (Reaction, when hit by a melee attack while adjacent to water) The adaro slips into a reflected sunbeam and swims up to 30 ft. without provoking opportunity attacks.
A lean merman warrior knifes up out of the surf, a swordfish crest jutting from his brow and a barbed spear couched under one arm, while the kraken he has lured rises behind him in a forest of grasping arms.
Adaro, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEForest of Arms (signature). Hau occupies a 15-foot space and provides three-quarters cover to the adaro while the two are adjacent. Its reach is 15 ft.
Actions
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14). Hau can grapple two creatures at once.
Reactions
Drag Under. (Reaction, on its turn) Hau pulls one creature grappled by it up to 15 ft. toward open water, where the adaro's Death by Sunbeam can finish the job.
The kraken the adaro lured from the trench, now leashed by spite to the spirit's hunt.
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 from the water with a thrown Barbed Spear, then surface to gore the nearest melee fighter prone. Kill-priority: anyone who steps into the water, since the adaro fights at full strength there. Pair it with the kraken or a shark pack so the party is grappled before it strikes.
This is the harasser piece, not the boss. Open in bright light beside water for advantage and the extra poison, spear-and-gore the squishiest target, then Sunward Dart away from any melee that lands. Let Hau-the-Drowner grapple and drag victims into the water where the adaro hits hardest; pair it with a bigger leviathan or warlord as the flagship threat.
Run several as a raiding school screening a true sea-titan. Each opens from a sunbeam, focus-fires the party healer with returning spears, and uses Tide Glide to stay un-pinned. Kill-priority for the party is forcing them onto dry land out of bright light, which strips their advantage and poison rider.
Put Adaro 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 Adaro?
Natively CR 6 (Tier 2, ~2,300 XP) as a Medium sea-spirit raider. Scale it down to a CR 2-ish skirmisher for Tier 1 or up to a CR 11-ish raider for Tier 3 using the numbers in the tier table; the traits and actions never change, only the math.
Can Adaro be a companion or ally?
Yes, as a treacherous one. A coastal party can buy an adaro's neutrality with the dawn's first catch, and it will herd sea-beasts against a shared enemy, but it answers to its own malice and abandons allies the moment the tide or the sunlight turns against it.
Is Adaro a solo boss?
No. It has no legendary actions and is built as an add-on, a hit-and-run skirmisher that screens a larger flagship threat such as its bound kraken Hau-the-Drowner or a full sea-titan. Use it to harry and grapple, then let the bigger monster do the centerpiece work.
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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