Bukavac
Bukavac — The Encounter
The Six-Horned Shrieker of Slavic Swamps and Drowning-Pools · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Bukavac
Among the drowning-pools and reed-choked meres of the old Slavic lands dwells the Bukavac, the six-horned shrieker that thrives in swamps and lakes. By night it heaves its serpentine bulk onto banks and broken jetties, seizes whatever beast or unwary traveler it finds, and drags the prize beneath the surface to throttle the breath from it. Its hunting cry is a thing of terror: a deafening, bone-jarring scream that rolls across the water and rattles the courage from villagers shuttered in their huts. Folk who walk the marsh after dusk count its horns by the moonlight and pray they have miscounted. Whispered into darker company, its venomous counsel promises dominion over waters and marshes to any patron willing to flood the world. Where its scream still echoes at dawn, fishermen find their nets cut, their cattle gone, and the mud churned with the clawed prints of something that breathes as easily below the water as above it.
Run Bukavac in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the shriek: open the fight from underwater or behind reeds so the first thing the party knows is Deafening Shriek landing on the cluster — deafened spellcasters lose verbal spells.
- Open from the water: never start on dry land. Surface, scream, grab, and drag back under; the bukavac wants the fight in the mire where it has advantage on Stealth and a 40-ft. swim.
- Kill-priority is the grappled victim: once it Claw-grapples someone, every turn is Constrict + Dragging Lunge toward deep water — drowning is the win condition, so the table should rush to free the captive.
- When bloodied: it dives and breaks line of sight, then resurfaces elsewhere to shriek again — run it as a hit-and-run drowner, not a stand-and-bang brute.
- Three ways to run it: low-effort = grab-drag-drown loop on one target; tense = ambush from murky water with the Reedwraith muffling rescue cries; epic = the bound monster of a Koschei-style necromancer, softening the party for its master.
Bukavac
Large monstrosity, chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. The bukavac can breathe air and water.
Marsh Lurker. The bukavac has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in murky water, reeds, or mud, and it leaves no tracks in such terrain.
Deafening Shriek. Signature. When the bukavac surfaces from water or starts its turn while submerged in it, each creature within 20 ft. that can hear it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be deafened until the end of its next turn. A creature that fails by 5 or more is also frightened until the end of its next turn as the bone-rattling scream claws at its nerves.
Actions
Multiattack. The bukavac makes one Gore attack and two Claw attacks. It can replace the Gore with a Constrict against a creature it has grappled.
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) piercing damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 15).
Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature grappled by the bukavac. Hit: 16 (3d6+4) bludgeoning damage, and the bukavac drags the target up to 15 ft. toward the nearest deep water.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Dragging Lunge (Bonus Action). The bukavac moves up to half its swim speed without provoking opportunity attacks, dragging any creature it is grappling with it.
A hulking serpent-limbed horror crusted with antler-horns and bristling spines, its skull-mask grinning above rows of lesser screaming maws. It rears from black swamp-water to drown its prey and leaves only a fading shriek behind.
Bukavac, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEDrowned Hush (signature). The reedwraith can magically muffle sound in a 10-ft. radius for 1 minute; creatures within have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.
Actions
Clinging Tendrils. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6+2) bludgeoning damage, and a Medium or smaller target is restrained until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Mire Drag. When an ally within 10 ft. grapples a creature, the reedwraith uses its reaction to slide that creature 5 ft. toward the nearest water.
A clot of animate swamp-reeds and drowned weed that shadows the bukavac, smothering the cries of the doomed so none come to help.
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 from cover in the water with Deafening Shriek to deafen the party before they can shout warnings. Grapple the nearest squishy caster and Dragging Lunge them toward deep water to isolate them. At this scale the bukavac is a terrifying boss for low parties; pair it with a couple of swamp critters as a finale.
Open with Deafening Shriek to break concentration and frighten, then Claw-grapple the lowest-AC target and Constrict-drag them toward water every round. Kill-priority is whoever it has grabbed: keep dragging until they drown. This is the marsh-set centerpiece; pair it with the Reedwraith or a Koschei-style necromancer commanding it.
Lead with Deafening Shriek on surfacing to scatter and deafen, then dive-grapple and submerge a single target turn after turn. It is an add-on bruiser here, not a solo threat — pair it with a bigger flagship caster who exploits the deafened, dragged, and isolated victims it serves up.
Put Bukavac 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 Bukavac?
Bukavac is CR 6 (2,300 XP) at its native Tier 2, built for parties of levels 5-10. Scaled stat blocks are provided for Tier 1 (levels 1-4) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15), with identical traits and only the numbers shifting.
Can Bukavac be a companion or ally?
Not as a player companion — it is a feral swamp predator that drowns what it grabs. It can serve a darker master, though: a necromancer or winter-witch can bind it, and the included Reedwraith, Bound (AC 13, 38 HP) is its natural minion, muffling the screams of the doomed.
How do I keep Bukavac from being a one-target drowning machine that bores the table?
Lean into it as a clock, not a grind. The grappled victim is on a drowning timer, which forces the rest of the party to act fast — give them a clear way to break the grapple or reach deep water. If you want more spread, run it with the Reedwraith so two threats pressure different players at once.
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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