Dagon
Dagon — The Encounter
Fish-god of the drowned coast, lord of the tides · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Dagon
Before the kingdoms of men set their idols in stone, the coast folk knelt to the thing that came in with the high tide. They called him Dagon, the Fish, and built him no temple but the sea itself. Sailors who survived a wrecking swore the wave had a face. Where his shadow falls the water turns brackish and warm, fish bloat and float belly-up, and the drowned do not stay buried. He asks for nets full of the firstborn catch and, in lean years, for firstborn of another kind; those who refuse wake to find the harbor risen over their thresholds. He does not rage so much as rise, patient and total, until the land remembers it was always meant to be sea floor. Priests who name him correctly may bargain for safe passage, but the price is always paid in breath, drawn slowly out of the lungs of those left behind on the shore.
Run Dagon in Sixty Seconds
- Geography is the fight. Dagon wants everyone in the water and himself touching it. Set the encounter on a pier, reef, or flooded ruin and his Tidal Regeneration plus Drowning Presence carry the whole block.
- Open with Dread Gaze (T3) on the party's top damage dealer, then Multiattack to grapple a target with a Claw and drag them toward open water with Tail Slam's push.
- Kill-priority is dry-land ranged. Anyone shooting from solid ground ignores his aura and his regen-by-water plan; use Surge of Brine and the Tail Slam push to drag them into the surf.
- When bloodied, he submerges. Lean hard on Tidal Regeneration and Undertow, refusing melee trades on land. Remind players he only stays dead if dropped to 0 while fully out of water.
- Three ways to run him: drowned-shrine solo boss with the Hagfish Acolyte at T3; a coastal warband's tidal centerpiece with cultist adds at T2; or a flooded-temple terror the low party must lure onto dry stone at T1.
Dagon
Huge fiend (demon), chaotic evil
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. Dagon can breathe air and water.
Drowning Presence. Signature. The water within 30 feet of Dagon answers him. A creature that starts its turn there and cannot breathe water must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or have its lungs flood: it takes 7 (2d6) cold damage and its speed is halved until the start of its next turn as brine rises in its throat. On land, this aura instead manifests as a clinging salt fog and creatures suffer only the halved-speed effect.
Tidal Regeneration. Dagon regains 10 hit points at the start of his turn if he is touching water or submerged. He dies only if reduced to 0 hit points while wholly out of water.
Actions
Multiattack. Dagon makes one Claw attack and one Tail Slam attack, or he makes two Claw attacks.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 6) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 17) if it is a Large or smaller creature. Dagon has two claws.
Tail Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (3d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone and pushed 10 feet toward the nearest open water.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Undertow (Reaction). When a creature Dagon can see within 30 feet hits him with a melee attack, Dagon surges a wave around them: the attacker must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or be pulled 10 feet toward Dagon and have their speed reduced to 0 until the end of their next turn.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Lashing Claw. Dagon makes one Claw attack.
Surge of Brine (Costs 2 Actions). Dagon calls a crashing swell in a 15-foot cube within 60 feet. Each creature there must make a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw, taking 14 (4d6) cold damage and being knocked prone on a failure, or half damage on a success.
Dread Gaze (Costs 2 Actions). Dagon fixes one creature he can see within 60 feet with his abyssal stare. The target must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened until the end of its next turn, dropping to half speed as the deep calls it down.
A Huge fish-god rears from a churning whirlpool, finned crest bristling, scaled torso tapering to a serpent's tail that coils through a drowned reef of bone and barnacle.
Dagon, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINETide-Touched (signature). While within 30 feet of water, the acolyte has advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened and ignores difficult terrain made of mud, surf, or shallows.
Actions
Coral Gaff. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d10 + 3) piercing damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 feet until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Brine Ward. When an ally within 10 feet takes damage, the acolyte douses them in conjured seawater, reducing the damage by 1d10 and granting the acolyte resistance to fire until the start of its next turn.
A gill-slit priest in dripping vestments, gaff in hand, chanting Dagon's tide into the throats of the faithful.
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 him as a flooded-shrine warlord the party can wound but not yet drown. Open with Drowning Presence to halve the front line's speed, then Tail Slam to scatter clusters toward the water's edge. Kill-priority is whoever can hit from dry land; herd everyone into the shallows where his aura bites.
A mid-tier coastal boss. Open by closing to the waterline so Tidal Regeneration stays online, then Multiattack the squishiest caster and grapple them with a Claw to drag them seaward. If clustered, lead with the wave effects; spend Undertow on anyone who steps up to melee so they can't disengage.
His home tier and a full solo centerpiece. Open with Dread Gaze on the party's biggest damage dealer, then Multiattack to grapple-and-drag a target toward open water. Spend legendary actions on Surge of Brine when two or more are clustered, Lashing Claw otherwise; never leave water voluntarily, since dying out of it is his only true death. Kill-priority: ranged attackers standing on dry ground.
Put Dagon 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 Dagon?
Native CR 11 (Tier 3, levels 11-15) as a solo-capable boss: AC 18, HP 207, +9 to hit, save DC 16, with legendary actions. He is built to anchor an encounter alone, dropping one band from his raw size because those legendary actions let him play up. The Tier 1 and Tier 2 columns rescale the same traits down for lower parties.
Can Dagon be a companion or ally?
Not Dagon himself, he is a flagship adversary, but the Hagfish Acolyte travels with him as a bound companion: AC 14, HP 120, a speed-sapping Coral Gaff, and a Brine Ward reaction that soaks damage for allies. Run the acolyte beside him for a drowned-cult duo, or field the acolyte solo as a Tier 2 add for a sea-themed warband.
How do I stop his regeneration?
Tidal Regeneration only works while he touches water, and he can only be permanently killed at 0 hit points while wholly out of it. Fights on dry ground, spells that push or wall him away from the surf, or simply draining a flooded chamber turn the deep's god mortal. Smart parties make the terrain the real boss fight.
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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