Engkanto Water
Engkanto Water — The Encounter
Hunched Water-Spirit of the Brook, Keeper of the Sapphire Eye · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Engkanto Water
Among the unseen folk of the islands the engkanto are the proud landlords of stream, spring, and tidal pool, and this one is reckoned the oldest of the water-keepers. Where its bare feet pass the soil sweats and rivulets follow uphill against their nature. Villagers who would draw from its brook first murmur "tabi-tabi po" - by your leave - lest they tread upon what they cannot see, for an engkanto slighted answers with swollen fever, twisted limbs, and the slow theft of a careless soul into the deep places beneath the water. The sapphire upon its staff is no jewel but a captured eye of the spring itself, through which the spirit watches every ford and well in its domain. It is courteous to the courteous and merciless to the proud; offerings of rice and white cloth turn its wrath, but iron nails and loud laughter near its waters invite the drowning grasp. Old men say it can be bargained with, never beaten.
Run Engkanto Water in Sixty Seconds
- Stay near water. Watery Form, Drowning Grasp, and resistance to nonmagical weapons all key off being within 30 ft. of a stream or pool - set the fight at the engkanto's brook, never in a dry room.
- Open with control. Lead turn one with hold person on the biggest weapon-user, then flood their square with the Sapphire Eye (bonus action) to knock prone - the surge keeps them down while your allies pile in.
- Kill-priority: the caster's screen. The engkanto melts apart through 1-inch gaps and misty steps away - take out whatever frontline ally is bodyguarding it first, then the spirit folds fast.
- When bloodied, it bargains or bolts. Below half HP it casts fog cloud and misty step toward open water; lore-true play offers it rice and white cloth (a peace clause), or run it as a cornered animal lashing Drowning Grasp every reaction.
- Three ways to run it. As a ritual guardian of a sacred spring (talk it down with 'tabi-tabi po'), as a spiteful controller paired with a flagship folklore boss, or as a lone trickster that floods the dungeon and vanishes.
Engkanto Water
Medium fey, neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEWatery Form. While within 30 feet of a natural body of water, the engkanto has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks and can move through any space at least 1 inch wide without squeezing, sliding apart into a coursing rivulet.
Sapphire Eye (signature). The blue orb crowning its staff is a bound fragment of a spring. As a bonus action the engkanto can flood a 10-foot cube it can see within 60 feet with surging water until the start of its next turn; the area becomes difficult terrain and each creature that ends its turn there must succeed on a DC 15 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Spellcasting. The engkanto is a 9th-level spellcaster (spell save DC 15, +7 to hit, Wisdom). It knows: cantrips - druidcraft, ray of frost, shape water; 1st - fog cloud, healing word; 2nd - hold person, misty step; 3rd - sleet storm, tidal wave; 4th - control water (each leveled slot can be cast twice per day).
Actions
Multiattack. The engkanto makes two attacks: one with its Staff and one with Conjured Torrent, or it casts a spell and makes one Staff attack.
Staff. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 2 + 1d8) damage - 9 (2d6+2) bludgeoning plus 4 (1d8) cold damage from the chilling orb.
Conjured Torrent. Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (4d6 + 4) cold damage, and the target's speed is halved until the end of its next turn as ice rimes its limbs.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Drowning Grasp (reaction). When a creature the engkanto can see within 30 feet hits it with a melee attack, the engkanto can wreathe the attacker in clinging water; the attacker must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution save or be unable to speak (no verbal spells) until the end of its next turn.
A stooped elder-spirit with river-purple skin and a sweeping white beard, draped in a tattered ochre mantle over green-bronze ceremonial plate, leaning on a gnarled staff that cradles a glowing sapphire eye of trapped water.
Engkanto Water, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESpring-Bound (signature). While within 60 feet of a body of water, Engkanto Water has resistance to fire and cold damage and can breathe water.
Actions
Lashing Current. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength save or be pulled 5 feet toward the nearest water.
Reactions
Vanishing Ripple. When hit by an attack, Engkanto Water can melt into spray and teleport up to 20 feet to an unoccupied space it can see, then takes half damage from the triggering attack.
A whispering knee-high coil of living water that serves the elder engkanto as both eyes and errand-runner, bound by an ancient covenant of leave.
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 near water with Conjured Torrent to slow your best mover, then flood a chokepoint with the Sapphire Eye so the party clusters in difficult terrain. Kill-priority is anyone who tries to drink from or cross its brook. Pair it with a bigger beast or a flagship folklore boss - this elder is the control piece, not the bruiser.
Open with hold person on the heaviest weapon-user, then Sapphire Eye their square to keep them prone in the surge. If clustered, lead with sleet storm or tidal wave and follow with Conjured Torrent on whoever shrugs it off. Keep within 30 ft. of water for Watery Form and Drowning Grasp; this is a caster add-on, so screen it behind a frontline ally.
Open control water to drag the party into the flood, then misty step to high ground and rain sleet storm + tidal wave each round. Kill-priority is the party's healer before your hold person wears off. Even scaled up it is a controller, not a solo - field it beside a flagship boss it can drown the battlefield for.
Put Engkanto Water 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 Engkanto Water?
Its home tier is CR 6 (2,300 XP), built for a party of levels 5-10 as a control-caster. The stat block also scales down to ~CR 2 for tier 1 (levels 1-4) and up to ~CR 11 for tier 3 (levels 11-15) by swapping only the AC, HP, to-hit, and save DC - traits and actions stay identical.
Can Engkanto Water be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a fey landlord of stream and spring it makes a natural patron rather than a pet: a party that murmurs 'tabi-tabi po' and offers rice and white cloth can earn its leave to cross its waters, gain control water on demand near rivers, or borrow Tabi the Bound Brook-Sprite as a scout. It serves grudges and covenants, never a leash.
Is this creature SRD-safe and tied to real mythology?
Yes. The engkanto is a genuine spirit of Philippine folklore - the unseen 'landlord' of natural places who demands courtesy ('tabi-tabi po') and answers slights with illness. It is public-domain mythology statted as a generic SRD fey using only SRD spells and conditions, with no proprietary content.
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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