Bies
Bies — The Encounter
Antlered hate that walks out of the rotting wood · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Bies
Where a wood goes wrong, where the fruit blackens on the bough and the deer flee without cause, look for the print of a cloven foot pressed deep in the loam. The bies is no woodland spirit but a fiend that has crawled up out of the cold places and worn the forest like a hide. It takes root in dead trees, drinking the rot, until bark fuses to muscle and antler bursts from its brow. It despises the living for their warmth and their small joys, and it hunts not from hunger but from spite, dragging the prone screaming into the briars. Salt thrown over the shoulder turns it aside; iron nailed above a door bars it; and its own name, spoken thrice without fear, can stagger it. But fear is the difficult part, for the bies wears the face of every nightmare the deep wood ever whispered, and it knows your name long before you learn its own.
Run Bies in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the line: the bies wants difficult terrain and a tree at its back. Plant it near cover or its base so Rooted Spite heals it and crits on a 19. Do not let players bait it into the open.
- Open with the grapple: Wrenching Slam the healer or controller first, drag them prone and pinned, then Antler Rake everyone else into the dirt. Prone melee targets feed its bonus crits.
- Kill-priority is the healer. The bies has no ranged answer, so it must reach and lock down whoever keeps the party standing. Grapple, drag, repeat.
- When bloodied, it stops grappling and goes berserk: full Multiattack on the lowest-HP target every turn, retreating each turn to a tree to claw back hit points with Rooted Spite.
- Three ways to run it: as a lurking ambusher (Stealth + Splintering Lunge from cover), as a flagship's bodyguard (peels the backline), or as a relentless slasher-stalker that re-roots and heals until the party fells it.
Bies
Large fiend, chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINERooted Spite. When the bies starts its turn within 5 ft. of a tree, stump, or its own diorama base, it regains 7 (2d6) hit points and its next melee attack this turn scores a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 as fresh deadwood erupts to drive the blow home.
Forest Stride. Difficult terrain composed of nonmagical plants and undergrowth costs the bies no extra movement, and it can move through such terrain without being slowed or taking damage from thorns, spines, or similar hazards.
Actions
Multiattack. The bies makes two Antler Rake attacks and one Wrenching Slam attack.
Antler Rake. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) slashing damage. On a hit against a Medium or smaller creature, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Wrenching Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and if the target is Large or smaller it is grappled (escape DC 15). Until this grapple ends the bies cannot slam another creature.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Splintering Lunge. Reaction (recharges after the bies is hit). When a creature the bies can see ends its turn within 15 ft. of it, the bies moves up to half its speed toward that creature without provoking opportunity attacks. If it ends within reach, it may make one Antler Rake attack.
A hulking grey-fleshed demon grown half into the dead wood it haunts, its skull crowned with a thicket of antler and branch, a leering bone trophy lashed to its loincloth as it rises hooved and clawed from a tangle of rotted fruit and roots.
Bies, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEGrasping Mire (signature). Squares within 10 ft. of the rootling are difficult terrain for the bies's enemies, as roots claw up from the soil.
Actions
Thorn Lash. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) piercing damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 ft. until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Snare. When an enemy within 10 ft. moves, the rootling forces a DC 13 Dexterity save or that creature's movement ends and it is grappled (escape DC 13).
A knee-high knot of animate deadwood and antler that the bies sends scuttling ahead to snare prey for its master's claws.
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 lunging at the softest body in the line and using Antler Rake to knock it prone, then trample it. Keep it within 5 ft. of a tree or its base so Rooted Spite keeps it standing. At this size it is a scary mid-fight bruiser, not a boss; pair it with a small skeleton-zombie mob so the party splits attention.
Open with Wrenching Slam on the healer or controller to grapple it out of position, then Antler Rake the next nearest body prone. Kill-priority is whoever heals; the bies wants to drag and pin, not trade blows in the open. Run it as the muscle beside a bigger flagship caster boss, leaning on Splintering Lunge to punish anyone who thinks they backed off safely.
Open by Splintering Lunging into the backline and pinning a striker with Wrenching Slam, then raking the rest prone. Stay rooted near terrain for the crit-on-19 swing and the heal. It is still an add at this tier, not a solo; place it as the bodyguard that peels off the party while the real boss controls the room.
Put Bies 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 Bies?
Native CR 6 (Tier 2, ~5th-10th level), worth 2,300 XP. Scaled stat lines are provided for Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 3 (~CR 9-10); traits and actions stay identical across all three, only the numbers move.
Can Bies be a companion or ally?
Not as written -- it is chaotic evil and built as an adversary add-on, not a solo boss. It pairs best as the muscle beside a bigger flagship. For a player-side or allied option, use its bound companion, the Rootling, which snares enemies and creates difficult terrain.
How do I make Bies a real boss fight?
Run it alongside a stronger controller or caster as the flagship; the bies grapples and isolates while the boss dictates the room. To solo it, bump it to the Tier 3 line, give it a recharge breath of rotting spores (15-ft. cone, DC 17 Con, 4d6 poison), and grant it one legendary move per round to lunge and reposition.
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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