Balor
Balor — The Encounter
The one-eyed king whose gaze withers armies · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Balor
Of the Fomori kings none is named with more dread than Balor, called Birugderc, the Baleful Eye. The grimoires hold that as a child he watched his father's druids brew their poisons, and the venomous fumes settled forever in his single eye, so that whatever it looked upon withered and died. So heavy did the lid grow that four men with hooks and ropes were needed to haul it open, and Balor unleashed that gaze only upon massed ranks, sweeping it like a scythe across whole hosts. The prophecy that he would fall to his own grandson drove him to drown the infant Lugh, yet the child lived, and at the second battle a sling-stone took Balor through that terrible eye, turning its ruin back upon his own Fomori legions. Until that day he was a fortress that walked, a horned mountain of green flesh whose every footfall cracked stone and whose lifted lid spelled the end of armies.
Run Balor in Sixty Seconds
- Lid stays shut by default. Balor's eye is a recharge weapon, not an at-will - keep it closed so the table sweats waiting for it, then open it the round the party clusters.
- Open with a Stomp or maul to knock prone. Prone melee = advantage for your spear and disadvantage on their ranged retaliation; control the floor before you control the eye.
- Withering Gaze is the whole fight. A 60-ft. line, DC 16 Dex, 6d10 necrotic, and it ash-kills anyone it drops - line it through healers and bunched PCs, never waste it on one target.
- When bloodied, get desperate. Spend legendary actions to crack the eye open off-turn and aim every beam at the backline; he is dying, so he stops fighting fair.
- Three ways to run him: lone executioner who one-shots formations, fortress-that-walks anchoring a Fomori warband, or a timed terror where the party must break line-of-sight before the lid lifts.
Balor
Huge giant, neutral evil
CR 8 · 3,900 XP · GUIDELINEDeath Eye (Recharge 5-6). Balor's single great eye is kept lidded against his own kin. As a trait, when his eye opens its lethal gaze unleashes a ruinous beam (see Withering Gaze under Actions). When this trait is available, his eye is open and his glare unsettles foes: any creature that starts its turn within 30 ft. and can see the eye has disadvantage on the first attack roll it makes that turn.
Siege Monster. Balor deals double damage to objects and structures.
Actions
Multiattack. Balor makes two attacks with his spiked maul-spear. He can replace one attack with Withering Gaze if it is available.
Spiked Maul-Spear. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 19 (3d8 + 6) piercing damage, and a Large or smaller target must succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Withering Gaze (Recharge 5-6). Balor lifts his lid and the death-eye blazes in a 60-foot line, 5 ft. wide. Each creature in the line makes a DC 16 Dexterity save, taking 33 (6d10) necrotic damage on a failure, or half on a success. A creature reduced to 0 hit points by this damage withers to ash.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Lidded Wrath. Reaction. When a creature Balor can see hits him with an attack, he sweeps his spear at it. The attacker must succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or be pushed 10 ft. away and take 9 (2d8) bludgeoning damage.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Stomp. Balor slams a foot down. Each creature within 5 ft. must succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Sweep (Costs 1 Action). Balor makes one spiked maul-spear attack.
Open the Eye (Costs 2 Actions). Balor uses Withering Gaze if it is recharged. He may shorten the line to 30 ft. to bend it toward a single cluster of foes.
A horned, single-eyed giant of bottled-green flesh hunches over the field, one massive hand clenched, the other gripping a rune-etched spiked maul-spear. His one great eye is half-lidded, as if holding back something the world is not meant to survive.
Balor, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEVenom Prophecy (signature). When Balor is within 30 ft. of Balor and his eye is open, allies that can see her gain advantage on saves against being frightened.
Actions
Envenomed Javelin. Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) poison damage.
Reactions
Curse the Slayer. Reaction. When an enemy reduces a Fomori ally to 0 hit points, that enemy must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom save or have disadvantage on attack rolls until the end of its next turn.
Balor's queen-seer hurls poisoned javelins and spits omens of doom; where she walks, the Fomori do not break.
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.
Keep the eye lidded one extra round so a level-3 party doesn't get vaporized turn one; open with the maul-spear to knock the front-liner prone. Withering Gaze is a panic button when two or more PCs line up. Pair him with a couple of fomori brutes so he isn't swarmed and dropped before the eye recharges.
Open by stomping the cluster prone, then maul the squishiest reachable target. Hold Withering Gaze for the moment the party bunches in a corridor or behind cover - it is your alpha strike and ash-kills downed PCs. Kill-priority is healers, but always angle the 60-ft. line through as many bodies as possible; legendary Stomps keep melee from pinning you.
Run him as a walking artillery piece: stomp to scatter, then spend legendary actions to crack the eye open off-turn for a second Withering Gaze in a round. When bloodied his glare goes desperate - aim every line at backline casters. Add a Fomori warband so high-level strikers can't simply burst him before the eye comes online.
Put Balor 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 Balor?
His home build is CR 8 (3,900 XP) for a 5th-10th level party. Because he carries legendary actions and a recharge alpha-strike, he plays up a band, so the sheet sits one tier below his menace on paper. Scale to AC 14 / +4 / DC 13 for tier 1 or AC 18 / DC 17 for tier 3 using the tiers block.
Can Balor be a companion or ally?
Not as a player ally - he is a hostile Fomori king and a centerpiece boss, not a sidekick. His listed companion, Cethlenn the Crooked-Toothed, is the on-field ally piece: a venom-throwing seer who buffs his nerve and curses whoever slays his kin. Field her at his side rather than swapping Balor into the party.
How do I keep the Death Eye from wiping the party?
Telegraph it. The eye being open is itself a trait the players can see, so describe the lid hauling up a round before the beam fires and let them scramble for cover or break the 60-ft. line. Recharge 5-6 means it fires roughly every other round - reward parties that spread out and punish conga-line marching.
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 Balor 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.
Log in to comment