Batibat
Batibat — The Encounter
Bloated tree-hag who smothers dreamers in their sleep · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Batibat
Among the spirits of the old groves there is none so patient as the Batibat, the fat lady of the balete. She does not hunt; she waits. When men fell her tree to clear a homestead and carve its trunk into a sleeping-post, she is carried, sullen and swollen, into their house. There she squats in the rafters above the bed and listens for the slow breath of dreamers. In the deepest hour she lowers her bulk upon the sleeper's chest, pressing the air from his lungs until his ribs creak and his heart forgets to beat — the death the lowlanders call bangungot, the nightmare from which one does not wake. Only by biting one's own thumb, or by wiggling the toes and calling her name aloud, may a dreamer break her weight and send her grumbling back into the wood. Burn the post, the elders say, and she has no roof to haunt.
Run Batibat in Sixty Seconds
- Hold its tree in mind — within 30 ft. of the balete it regens 10 HP a turn and resists nonmagical weapons. The real kill condition is felling or burning that tree, not dropping its HP.
- Open from ambush on the sleeper — it knows every sleeping creature within 120 ft. and emerges already adjacent. First round it grapples your two softest targets with Crushing Grasp.
- Smothering Weight is the clock — a grappled PC can't heal, fails a DC 14 Con save and stops breathing; if it's also at 0 HP, it dies instantly. Free grappled allies before that math lands.
- When bloodied, it dives into its tree (Bind Into Tree) to go untouchable, regen, and re-emerge next to a fresh victim — a tell to push casters back from the trunk.
- Three ways to run it: as a lone bangungot horror that smothers one sleeper in a dread set-piece; as the control centerpiece pinning strikers while duwende harass; or as a grove guardian the party must out-think by burning the tree.
Batibat
Large fiend (shapechanger), neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINETree Bound. The batibat is mystically tied to a single tree (its balete). While within 30 feet of that tree it regains 10 hit points at the start of each of its turns. If the tree is felled or burned, the batibat loses this regeneration and has disadvantage on attack rolls until it can bind a new tree (1 hour of ritual).
Dream Sense. The batibat automatically knows the location of any sleeping creature within 120 feet and can read the surface contents of its dreams.
Smothering Weight (Signature). A creature the batibat is grappling cannot regain hit points and must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw at the start of each of its turns or have its speed reduced to 0 and be unable to breathe until the grapple ends, as the bloated horror presses down on its chest. A creature that begins its turn unable to breathe this way and is reduced to 0 hit points by the batibat dies instantly, its heart stopped in sleep.
Actions
Multiattack. The batibat makes two Crushing Grasp attacks. It can use Nightmare Press in place of one attack if it has a target grappled.
Crushing Grasp. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (3d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature it is grappled (escape DC 15). The batibat has two hands and can grapple two creatures at once.
Nightmare Press. The batibat looms over one creature it is grappling. The target must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or take 18 (4d6 + 4) psychic damage and fall prone within its own nightmare, becoming frightened of the batibat until the end of its next turn. On a success it takes half damage and is not frightened.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Bind Into Tree. (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest) As a bonus action while within 5 feet of its bound tree, the batibat melts into the bark, becoming invisible and unable to act but immune to all damage. It can emerge (no action) at the start of its next turn, often beside a fresh sleeper.
A swollen, hairy horror crouches on a sleeping mat beside a hollowed balete tree, claws splayed and chest distended with the breath of those it has smothered. Its eyes never close, and it never leaves the shade of its tree.
Batibat, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEEarthmeld (signature). The duwende can move through earth, stone, and tree roots as if they were difficult terrain, leaving no opening, and has advantage on Stealth checks while underground.
Actions
Knotted Cudgel. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution save or be poisoned until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Mound Ward. When the batibat would be hit by an attack, the duwende may impose disadvantage on that attack roll by hurling a fistful of cursed soil. It must be within 15 feet of the batibat to do so.
A spiteful little mound-dweller that resents the same homesteaders the batibat smothers, scurrying through the roots to trip and curse anyone who comes for its fat mistress.
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.
Run it as a single ambush horror that drops on the lone sleeper; it grapples one PC and presses while the party scrambles. Kill-priority for the party is to break the grapple FAST before Smothering Weight stacks. Do not pair it with other threats at this tier — it is already terrifying for level 2-3.
Open from the tree: it emerges, grabs the two squishiest casters with Crushing Grasp, then alternates Nightmare Press to stack fear and psychic. Smother the grappled targets while the front line wastes turns digging them out. If the fight turns, Bind Into Tree to regen 10/turn and re-emerge beside a fresh victim — make the party burn the balete to truly end it. Pair it as the centerpiece of a haunted-house or grove encounter with a duwende or two.
Now a grove-tyrant: grapple two targets, Nightmare Press the more fragile, and lean on Smothering Weight's instant-kill clause against anyone already low. The party should split fire — half on freeing the grappled, half on the bound tree to kill its regen. Pair with multiple duwende and a bigger fiend flagship; the batibat is the control piece that pins your strikers.
Put Batibat 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 Batibat?
Natively CR 6 (Tier 2, ~levels 5-10): AC 15, 127 HP, +7 to hit, save DC 14. Scale it with the provided Tier 1 (CR ~2) and Tier 3 (CR ~11) blocks. It is an add-on/control centerpiece, not a legendary solo, so it keeps native-tier numbers with no band-drop.
Can Batibat be a companion or ally?
Not really — it is a malevolent sleep-fiend bound to its tree and will smother allies as readily as foes. If you must, treat it as an uneasy ward over a single grove, never travelling beyond 30 ft. of its balete. Its bundled duwende companion is the friendlier (relatively) pet option.
How do you actually kill or banish a Batibat?
Out-think it: while its bound tree stands it regens 10 HP a turn and shrugs off nonmagical weapons. Fell or burn the balete to strip its regeneration and give it disadvantage, then finish it. Folklorically, a smothered dreamer can also break free by biting a thumb or wiggling the toes and shouting its name — a fun saving-throw reskin at the table.
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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