Aquarius
Aquarius — The Encounter
Haloed water-bearer who drowns the world in her gift · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Aquarius
Among the Western Zodiac powers, Aquarius is the Bearer of Endless Water, the eleventh seat of the wheel, who pours from urns that can never run dry. Where Pisces swims and Cancer guards the shallows, Aquarius gives; her gift is the flood that nourishes the field and the flood that swallows the village, for she does not choose which. Sailors carve her twin-wave glyph into prow and well-stone, and in years of drought whole temples are built to coax her urns to tip. She wears a halo not of fire but of still water, and her lower body is the scaled coil of the deep, trailing tentacles that are the reaching arms of every river she has ever fed. To bargain with Aquarius is to ask the tide for mercy: she will answer, and the answer is more water than you asked for. Her colony of zodiac kin name her the most generous and the most dangerous of their number, because generosity without measure is its own kind of drowning.
Run Aquarius in Sixty Seconds
- She controls, she does not finish. Aquarius is a battlefield-control add-on, not a solo boss. Run her beside a heavier zodiac flagship and let her decide where the fight happens.
- Open with Spill the Urns the instant two PCs cluster. The cone knocks prone and leaves difficult, lightly obscured water that powers her Tidal Pull trait.
- Kill-priority for the party should be range. Once they break line of sight or close the gap, her Drowning Stream and grapple-and-drag combo lose most of their teeth.
- Grapple the caster, drag it onto the tide. A target in her spilled water has disadvantage on its next attack and difficult-terrain escape, buying your flagship a free round.
- Three ways to run her: generous-but-deadly font (lawful flood, talks first), silent zodiac sentinel (pure control, never speaks), or vengeful drought-spirit (drowns those who let her wells run dry).
Aquarius
Large celestial, neutral good
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. Aquarius can breathe air and water.
Tidal Pull (signature). The ground within 15 feet of Aquarius is difficult terrain for her enemies as conjured currents drag at their legs. When a creature starts its turn there and is already in water or standing in the spilled tide of her urns, it has disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes that turn.
Actions
Multiattack. Aquarius makes two attacks: one with her Tentacle Lash and one with her Drowning Stream, or she casts a spell and makes one Tentacle Lash attack.
Tentacle Lash. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14) if it is Large or smaller.
Drowning Stream. Ranged Spell Attack: +6 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (4d6 + 3) cold damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be pushed 10 feet away and knocked prone.
Spill the Urns (Recharge 5-6). Aquarius upends both vessels in a 30-foot cone of crushing water. Each creature in the area makes a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 27 (6d8) cold damage and being knocked prone on a failure, or half damage and not prone on a success. The area becomes lightly obscured shallow water (difficult terrain) until the start of her next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Receding Tide. Reaction. When a creature Aquarius can see hits her with an attack, she pulls a wall of water across herself, gaining a +3 bonus to AC against that attack. If the attack still misses, the attacker must succeed on a DC 14 Strength save or be pushed 5 feet.
A crowned and haloed water-bearer rises from a mermaid's coiled tail, two great urns slung at her hips forever spilling living water that twists into grasping tentacles. The base churns blue beneath the twin-wave glyph of her sign.
Aquarius, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEWatery Form (signature). The naiad can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing and has resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage while in or adjacent to water.
Actions
Tidal Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) cold damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of its next turn.
Reactions
Cleansing Current. Reaction. When an ally within 10 feet fails a saving throw against being poisoned, frightened, or charmed, the naiad washes the effect away and the ally rerolls the save.
A handmaiden-spirit poured from the same urns, she anchors the water-bearer's blessing into a single faithful vessel and walks beside a chosen hero.
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 at range with Drowning Stream to scatter the front line, then grapple the squishiest caster with Tentacle Lash and drag it into the spilled water. If the party clusters near a doorway, Spill the Urns to knock them prone. Pair her with a sturdier zodiac brute so she never has to trade blows toe-to-toe.
Open by spilling the urns the moment two or more PCs bunch up, then grapple the kill-priority target (healer or wizard) and pull it onto the difficult-terrain tide so its escape attempts have disadvantage. Hold Receding Tide for the hardest single hit each round. She is the control piece, not the boss; run her beside a heavier zodiac flagship and let her lock down whoever the flagship wants dead.
Lead with Spill the Urns to seize the floor, then chain-grapple two melee threats and keep the swim speed between her and the martials so they fight in difficult terrain. Prioritize anyone who can teleport allies out of her tide. She still wants a true boss alongside her; she denies ground and softens targets rather than finishing them.
Put Aquarius 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 Aquarius?
Her home build is CR 6 (2,300 XP), a Tier 2 controller. Scaled-down and scaled-up CR 2 and CR 11 statlines are provided in the tiers array; the traits and actions are identical at every tier and only the numbers move.
Can Aquarius be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a neutral good celestial she makes a natural patron or quest-giver. Use the bundled Naiad of the Spilled Urn (AC 14, 76 HP) as the rideable ally statblock when a party earns her blessing; Aquarius herself stays an NPC-scale power.
Is Aquarius solo_capable as a boss?
No. She has no legendary actions and her kit is control, not sustained damage, so a party will outpace a lone Aquarius. Pair her with a true zodiac flagship and let her lock down targets while the flagship lands the killing blows.
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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