Hua Mulan
Hua Mulan — The Encounter
The maiden who took her father's place in war · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Hua Mulan
They sang of the conscription rolls that named her aging father, and of the daughter who cut her hair, bought a horse, and answered in his stead. For twelve years she marched the northern frontier under a borrowed name, and not one comrade guessed the soldier beside them was a maiden until the war was won and she rode home to put on her old robes again. The grimoires of the eastern courts keep her not as a sorceress but as a measure: the proof that loyalty and discipline outweigh the loudest spell. She fights the way a long campaign teaches a body to fight, with nothing wasted, reading the enemy's stance before the first stroke and turning a friend's wound aside as readily as her own. Where she stands, frightened levies hold the line. Where she falls, the song says, an entire wall remembers how to stand.
Run Hua Mulan in Sixty Seconds
- What she is A disciplined human officer, not a caster — Medium humanoid with three sword attacks and battlefield support, native to levels 5-10 (CR 6).
- Open with Multiattack on the party's lightest-armored front-liner, then bonus-action Rally the Line to launch one of your monsters into a flank.
- Kill-priority She wants to stand near your boss, not the wall — point her warblade at enemy spellcasters and use Turn the Blade to keep your flagship alive.
- When bloodied Pull her to the dragon's coil for half cover and switch to the Recurved Bow; she fights long campaigns, not last stands.
- Three ways to run her (1) elite bodyguard for a bigger boss, (2) frontier captain leading a unit of soldiers who borrow her fear immunity, (3) lone honorable duelist who offers single combat.
Hua Mulan
Medium humanoid (human), lawful good
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEDaughter's Devotion. Hua Mulan has advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. While she is within 30 feet of an ally who can see her, that ally gains the same advantage.
Veteran's Footwork. (signature) Hua Mulan masks her training behind a soldier's plain stance. The first time each round she is hit by a melee attack, she may treat the triggering roll as if it had missed by 2 if doing so would change a hit to a miss; if it still hits, she ignores 5 of the damage.
Actions
Multiattack. Hua Mulan makes three attacks with her warblade, or two warblade attacks and one with her bow.
Warblade. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage. On a critical hit, the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be unable to take reactions until the end of its next turn.
Recurved Bow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Rally the Line (Bonus Action). Hua Mulan shouts a soldier's cadence. One ally she can see within 30 feet may immediately move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks and adds 1d6 to its next attack roll before the start of her next turn.
Turn the Blade (Reaction). When a creature she can see within 5 feet is hit by an attack, Hua Mulan can add 2 to that creature's AC against the triggering attack, potentially causing it to miss.
A slight figure in plain lamellar plants her boots at the dragon's coil, warblade level and unhurried, hiding a decade of soldiering behind a farmer's calm.
Hua Mulan, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESerpent Bulwark (signature). While Hua Mulan is within 10 feet of Hua Mulan, she has half cover (+2 AC and +2 to Dexterity saving throws) from any attack that passes the dragon's body.
Actions
Tail Sweep. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and a Large or smaller target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Coil and Carry. When Hua Mulan would be hit by an attack, Hua Mulan may sweep her aside, granting +3 AC against that attack and moving her up to 10 feet to an unoccupied space.
The river-spirit that adopted her cause winds beneath her stance, a moving wall of azure scale answering her cadence as surely as any sworn soldier.
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 her as a duelist captain: open by marking the party's heaviest hitter and using Veteran's Footwork to shrug their alpha strike. Rally the Line keeps a weaker ally swinging. Kill-priority is the controller; pair her with a flagship boss so she protects it rather than soloing.
Home tier. Open with Multiattack on the squishiest front-liner, then bonus-action Rally to slingshot an ally into flank. When bloodied she backs to the dragon's coil for cover and trades to ranged Recurved Bow. She is the elite officer piece next to a bigger threat, not a solo.
Scale her as a warlord lieutenant beside a true boss. Open by stripping the enemy's reaction with a crit-fishing warblade flurry, use Turn the Blade to babysit the flagship, and Rally to chain ally turns. Kill-priority remains casters; she punishes anyone who ignores her support reactions.
Put Hua Mulan 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 Hua Mulan?
Her home build is CR 6 (2,300 XP), tuned for a party of levels 5-10. Tier-1 and tier-3 stat columns are provided to drop her to roughly CR 2 or raise her to roughly CR 11 without changing her traits — only the numbers move.
Can Hua Mulan be a companion or ally?
Yes. She is lawful good and reads naturally as a friendly captain, mentor, or sworn ally. Her Daughter's Devotion and Rally the Line traits actively buff a party, making her an excellent NPC who fights beside the players rather than against them.
Is she a spellcaster or a dragon-rider?
Neither by the book — she is a pure martial veteran. The coiling dragon in the render is statted as her bound companion, Azure Coil, a river-spirit that shields her; you can drop the companion entirely and run her as a lone warrior with no change to her own block.
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
Played Hua Mulan at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
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