Garmr
Garmr — The Encounter
Blood-stained Hound that bays before the gate of the dead · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Garmr
In the old reckoning of the North there stands a hound at the mouth of the cold halls beneath the world, and its name is whispered as Garmr. The skalds sing that its breast is forever stained with blood, for it tears at all who would pass into death uninvited and at all the dead who would flee back toward the living. It is fed on the bones of the unworthy and on the courage of warriors, and its baying is said to carry on the wind before great slaughter. The wise hold that at the breaking of the world Garmr will slip its fetter and meet a war-god jaw to spear, and the two shall fall together. Until that doom it haunts the boundary places, the burial mounds and the frost-cracked passes, and travelers who hear a hound that howls with no breath of warmth behind it are counseled to turn back, light no fire, and pray the scent of their living blood does not carry far.
Run Garmr in Sixty Seconds
- Not a boss. Garmr is a fast add-on hound - pair it with a flagship Norse threat and let it harry the soft targets while the big monster anchors the fight.
- Open with Pounce. Bonus-action move straight at a caster or archer, Bite to knock prone, then Spined Lash anyone trying to back away (their speed drops 10 ft.).
- Kill-priority: the dying. Always aim the finishing blow at the lowest-HP creature - dropping someone or critting grants 10 temp HP and an extra 2d6 necrotic on its bite.
- When bloodied, lean on the howl. Hold Baying Howl (Recharge 5-6) for when three or more cluster: 6d6 cold and frightened on a failed DC 14 Wis save buys it breathing room.
- Three ways to run it: lone outrider that softens the party before the boss arrives; a coupled pair with its whelp Managarmr for flanking; or the unleashed gate-hound guarding a barrow's threshold the party must cross.
Garmr
Large monstrosity, neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEKeen Smell. The hound has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell, and cannot be surprised by a creature it can smell.
Hound of the Threshold. Signature. Garmr was bred to bar the road to the lands of the dead, and the dying call to it. When it reduces a creature to 0 hit points, or scores a critical hit, it gains 10 temporary hit points and its bite deals an extra 7 (2d6) necrotic damage until the end of its next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. The hound makes two attacks: one with its Bite and one with its Spined Lash.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d12 + 4) piercing damage, and if the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Spined Lash. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage from the barbed tail, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 ft. until the end of its next turn.
Baying Howl (Recharge 5-6). The hound looses a grave-cold howl. Each creature within 30 feet must make a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw, taking 21 (6d6) cold damage and becoming frightened until the end of its next turn on a failure, or half as much damage and not frightened on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Pounce. Bonus Action. The hound moves up to its speed toward a creature it can see and does not provoke opportunity attacks during this movement.
A gaunt, wolf-shaped horror crusted in frost and dried gore, its spine bristling with a crown of bone spikes and a barbed serpent-tail lashing behind. The render shows it mid-prowl, tusked jaws low to the ground, hunting the scent of the soon-to-die.
Garmr, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Snap (signature). When an ally within 10 feet of the whelp hits a creature with a melee attack, that creature has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes before the start of its next turn.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage.
Reactions
Frost Recoil. When a creature within 5 feet hits the whelp with a melee attack, the whelp lashes its frost-rimed tail. The attacker takes 4 (1d8) cold damage.
A leaner, half-grown hound of the same gore-stained brood, kept at heel and loosed to harry whatever its elder brings low.
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 with Pounce into a Bite and try to knock a squishy caster prone, then chew on them. If the party clusters, hold Baying Howl for two or more in the 30-ft. cone. Kill-priority is whoever is already hurt - Hound of the Threshold rewards finishing the dying. Pair it with a bigger flagship; alone it is a tense skirmish, not a boss.
This is the home tier - run it as a fast flanking add-on, not a solo boss. Pounce in, Bite to knock prone, Spined Lash to pin a kiter's movement, and dump Baying Howl when three or more are bunched. Always swing the killing blow at the lowest-HP target to trigger Hound of the Threshold's temp HP and bonus necrotic. Best paired with a Norse flagship (a giant or serpent) as its loosed hunting beast.
Scaled up as a high-tier hunting hound running with a doom-tier boss. Lead with Pounce + Bite to floor the back-line, recharge Baying Howl onto the clustered front, and let Hound of the Threshold snowball temp HP off downed PCs. Kill-priority stays the most-wounded body. It is still an add-on - keep a legendary flagship in the fight or the party will focus and burst it down.
Put Garmr 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 Garmr?
Garmr is built at CR 6 (2,300 XP) on its native Tier 2 sheet - AC 15, 126 HP, +7 to hit, save DC 14. The included Tier 1 and Tier 3 columns rescale the same traits to roughly CR 2 and CR 11 so you can drop it into any table without changing how it plays.
Can Garmr be a companion or ally?
As written Garmr is a hostile add-on monster, not a controllable ally - it is a half-feral gate-hound, not a mount. For a friendly version use the companion block, Managarmr the Whelp of the Mound (AC 14, 76 HP), a lesser hound of the same brood that fights at a hero's heel and softens enemy saves.
Is Garmr a solo boss?
No. It has no legendary actions, so a focused party will burst it down in a round or two if it fights alone. Run it as a flanking threat alongside a flagship Norse boss - a frost giant, a great serpent, or a doom-tier figure - and let its speed and Pounce keep it on the back line.
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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