Ahkiyyini
Ahkiyyini — The Encounter
Dancing bone-shaman whose drum shakes the dead awake · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Ahkiyyini
In the old Inuit telling, Ahkiyyini was a man who loved nothing so much as to dance and to drum. Even death could not still him. Buried in the cold ground, he rose again as bone and music, and when he beats the skin of his drum the very earth quakes and the sea answers, and the dead in their graves cannot keep from rising to dance beside him. Hunters who hear the rhythm far across the ice are warned to turn back, for those who follow the sound are danced to exhaustion and do not return. He is no cruel spirit, only a restless one, joy and grave-cold woven into a single relentless beat. Shamans court him for the strength his rhythm lends the risen, and dread him for the same reason, for once his drum begins it will not stop until silenced at its source.
Run Ahkiyyini in Sixty Seconds
- Drum first. On turn one Ahkiyyini beats the aura up before attacking - nearby undead heal 5/round and resist fear, so this is its whole reason to exist on the field.
- Kill-priority is the music. The aura only dies when Ahkiyyini hits 0 HP or is stunned/silenced - focus a stun or a Silence spell on it before grinding HP.
- When clustered, Quaking Refrain. Recharge 5-6 in a 20-ft burst, DC 15 Dex, 4d8 thunder and prone - hold it for the moment two or more PCs bunch, not the moment it recharges.
- Watch the reaction. Slip Beneath the Surf halves one hit and teleports it 15 ft - your big nova may land at half value, so save burst for after it has used the reaction.
- Three ways to run it: rhythm engine behind Ahklut or Sedna (default), a lone graveyard haunt that raises the dead to dance, or a roaming ice-river ambusher that surges from frozen water at reach.
Ahkiyyini
Large undead (spirit), chaotic neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEDrum of the Dead. Signature. Ahkiyyini beats a relentless bone-rhythm. While it is not incapacitated, allies within 30 ft. that can hear it have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened, and any undead ally that starts its turn in the aura regains 5 hit points. The drumbeat is audible up to 300 ft. and cannot be silenced except by reducing Ahkiyyini to 0 hit points or stunning it.
Surge Form. Ahkiyyini's body is rising water and frost. It can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing, and ignores difficult terrain made of water, ice, or snow.
Actions
Multiattack. Ahkiyyini makes two Bone Beater attacks, or one Bone Beater attack and uses Quaking Refrain (if available).
Bone Beater. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage plus 7 (2d6) cold damage.
Quaking Refrain (Recharge 5-6). Ahkiyyini pounds a thunderous rhythm and the ground heaves in a 20-foot radius centered on itself. Each creature in the area must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 18 (4d8) thunder damage and falling prone on a failed save, or half as much damage and no prone on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Slip Beneath the Surf. Reaction (when hit by an attack). Ahkiyyini collapses into a sheet of water and reforms up to 15 feet away in unoccupied space, halving the triggering damage.
A wild-maned skeletal spirit rears from a frozen geyser of cresting blue water, beating bone drums with bone batons, its wings spread from the churning wave that bears it aloft.
Ahkiyyini, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEDance Without End (signature). While it can hear Ahkiyyini's drum, the Reveler is immune to the exhausted condition and ignores the effects of being prone for movement.
Actions
Frostbitten Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) cold damage.
Reactions
Keep the Rhythm. Reaction (when Ahkiyyini takes damage within 10 ft.). The Reveler steps into the path of harm, taking the damage in Ahkiyyini's place.
A grave-cold corpse jerks upright in time with the drum, grinning, unable to stop moving so long as the beat carries.
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 drumming up the aura, then send any undead allies forward while Ahkiyyini wades in from the water at reach. If the party clusters, hold Quaking Refrain for a knockdown. Pair it with a bigger threat - it is the support and morale piece, not the kill.
Open the drum aura turn one so nearby undead heal and resist fear, then strike with two Bone Beaters at reach. When two or more PCs bunch up, Quaking Refrain to prone them and let allies pile on. Kill-priority is whoever can stun or silence it; pair it with a flagship boss like Ahklut or Sedna as the rhythm engine.
Drum aura up, then alternate Bone Beaters and Quaking Refrain to keep the floor a churning hazard. Use Slip Beneath the Surf the instant a heavy hit lands to bleed damage and reposition behind cover of water. Kill-priority is anything that can silence the drum; keep it shielded by risen dancers and a larger boss.
Put Ahkiyyini 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 Ahkiyyini?
Natively CR 6 (Tier 2, ~2,300 XP) - a Large undead spirit built as a support add-on, not a solo boss. Scaled stat lines for Tiers 1 and 3 are included so you can drop it into levels 1-4 or 11-15 without rebuilding it.
Can Ahkiyyini be a companion or ally?
Yes, as an unsettling ally rather than a tame one. A shaman-PC or undead-themed party can court its drum for the healing-and-fear aura it grants risen allies, but its music never fully stops, which makes peaceful company difficult. Treat it as a borrowed force of nature on a leash, not a loyal pet.
Why is it undead and not a celestial or elemental?
The render is a skeletal, wild-maned drummer riding a surge of frozen water - in the Inuit telling Ahkiyyini is a dead man who rose to keep dancing. It reads as an undead spirit clothed in water, so it carries undead immunities (poison, charm, paralysis) plus cold resistance from its frozen form.
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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