Herio
Herio — The Encounter
Antlered Oracle of the Twilight Court, crowned in grief · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Herio
Inscribed in the twilight annals: Herio was raised in the crystalline courts where a grieving sovereign demanded perfection of his children, and where prophecy was treated as law. Crowned with the antlers of the messenger-stag and bearing a crow's skull upon his staff, Herio became the court's oracle, the one who read the threads of fate and spoke them aloud whether the listener wished it or not. He is no warrior; he is a witness who turns foresight into a weapon, foreseeing each strike before it falls and lamenting the dead before they have died. The crystal beneath his feet, cracked and reddened, marks the cost of the truths he has uttered. Those who seek him come for an answer and leave with a curse, for the antlered oracle gives only what fate has already written, and fate, in the twilight court, was rarely kind. He grieves even as he condemns.
Run Herio in Sixty Seconds
- Foresight first: remind the table the oracle is never surprised and the first harmful roll each round may have disadvantage. Have players bait it with a low-stakes attack, then commit their big swing.
- Open with the Lament: if the party bunches up on approach, lead with Twilight Lament for the cone of psychic damage plus frightened, then settle into Multiattack.
- Kill-priority is countermagic: the oracle wants dispel magic and bestow curse on your buffers and front-liner. Drop your own caster's concentration spells last, or it strips them.
- When bloodied (63 HP): it stops trading blows and kites, using Wings of the Twilight to fly off after every hit and leaning on legendary Glimpse the Thread to blunt your best attacker.
- Three ways to run it: as a band-dropped solo boss with legendary actions, as the prophecy-keeper behind a flagship tyrant, or as a non-combat oracle who only fights when its truths are refused.
Herio
Medium celestial, lawful neutral
CR 8 · 3,900 XP · GUIDELINEOracle's Foresight. Herio cannot be surprised. When a creature it can see within 60 feet makes an attack roll or saving throw, Herio can foresee the outcome; the first such roll each round is made with disadvantage if it would harm Herio or its allies (no action required).
Magic Resistance. Herio has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Innate Spellcasting. Herio's spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 15, +7 to hit with spell attacks). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: sacred flame, guidance, detect magic. 3/day each: guiding bolt, augury. 1/day each: dispel magic, bestow curse.
Actions
Multiattack. Herio makes two attacks with its Crow-Skull Staff, or casts a spell and makes one Crow-Skull Staff attack.
Crow-Skull Staff. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) radiant damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be unable to take reactions until the end of its next turn.
Twilight Lament (Recharge 5-6). Herio unleashes a wail of mourning in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw, taking 27 (6d8) psychic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also frightened of Herio until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Wings of the Twilight (Reaction). When a creature Herio can see hits it with an attack, Herio beats its great feathered wings and flies up to 20 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Staff Strike. Herio makes one Crow-Skull Staff attack.
Glimpse the Thread (Costs 1 Action). Herio targets one creature it can see within 60 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or have disadvantage on its next attack roll or ability check before the start of Herio's next turn.
Mourning Pulse (Costs 2 Actions). Herio releases a burst of sorrow. Each creature within 15 feet takes 9 (2d8) psychic damage and is pushed 10 feet away from Herio.
A regal winged seer crowned with branching antlers, robed in starlit cloth chased with gold, leaning on a tall staff topped by a crow's skull, standing upon a shard of crystal stained with old blood.
Herio, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEOmen-Sight (signature). While within 30 feet of its bearer, the familiar grants its bearer advantage on Wisdom (Insight) and Wisdom (Perception) checks.
Actions
Spectral Peck. Melee Spell Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) necrotic damage.
Reactions
Cry of Warning. When an ally within 15 feet is targeted by an attack, the familiar shrieks; the attacker has disadvantage on that attack roll.
The crow's skull crowning the oracle's staff stirs with a borrowed half-life, croaking warnings no living throat could form.
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 Twilight Lament before the party closes, then peck at the worst-saving PC with the staff. Foresight makes it frustrating to hit; tell players to bait the disadvantage with a throwaway attack first. As a band-dropped boss here, pair with one weak skirmisher so the oracle is not simply swarmed.
Open with guiding bolt on the heaviest hitter, then full Multiattack. Save Twilight Lament for when 3+ PCs cluster. Kill-priority is the cleric or anyone with countermagic, since dispel magic and bestow curse let it strip buffs. Use legendary Glimpse the Thread on whoever is about to crit, and fly with the wing reaction to keep melee off it.
Lead with bestow curse on the front-line damage dealer, then alternate Twilight Lament and Multiattack. Spend all legendary actions on Mourning Pulse to scatter clustered melee. Kill-priority is any single-target controller; the oracle's foresight and magic resistance mean its real weakness is action economy, so feed it few but strong targets.
Put Herio 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 Herio?
Herio is built at CR 8 (3,900 XP) in its native Tier 2 band, tuned as a solo centerpiece thanks to its legendary actions and foresight. The Tier 1 (CR ~3) and Tier 3 (CR ~12) versions on the sheet keep every trait identical and only move the numbers, so you can drop the antlered oracle into a level 1-4 or 11-15 game without redesigning it.
Can Herio be a companion or ally?
Yes. As an oracle rather than a brute, Herio makes an excellent quest-giver or temporary patron: its Oracle's Foresight, augury, and guidance support a party more than its staff threatens them. If you want a player-side ally, run the bound Crow-Skull Familiar (AC 13, 22 HP) as the controllable piece and keep Herio as the off-screen prophet who sends it.
Is Herio a devil or a fallen angel?
Statted as a celestial. The render reads as a winged seer-king of a twilight court, crowned with messenger antlers and bearing a crow-skull staff, so the block leans into radiant and psychic mourning magic rather than infernal fire. If you want a fallen-grace flavor, simply describe its radiant damage as cold starlight; no rules change is needed.
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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