Inguma
Inguma — The Encounter
The Basque nightmare-spirit that strangles the sleeping · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Inguma
In the old Euskal Herria they did not name it after dusk, for to speak of Inguma was to invite it past the threshold. It comes when the house sleeps, slipping through latched doors and drawn shutters on no wind, and it kneels upon the breast of the dreamer to press the breath from the lungs. The strangled wake gasping in the black hour, certain a weight sat upon them, finding the door still barred. Wise grandmothers taught a charm against it — a litany counting Inguma among the named night-terrors and bidding it count every star and every blade of grass before it might return, a task no spirit completes before cockcrow. It keeps the torn pages of those who tried to bind it, and reads from them the private fears of every soul beneath the roof. Salt at the sill and an unbroken prayer turn it aside; a single dreamer left unwatched, it never forgives.
Run Inguma in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the open until the party is in a tight room — sleep and Smothering Dream both reward clustered targets, so let them bunch before you act.
- Open with fear or sleep, never with a melee attack; Inguma is a controller that wins by taking turns away, not by trading blows.
- Kill-priority is the wake-up button: drop the cleric/bard first, because Sleeper's Bane makes Inguma invisible and advantaged against anyone you put to sleep.
- When bloodied, stop conserving — chain legendary Lashing Tendrils to silence casters and spend Whispered Dread to keep the front line frightened.
- Three ways to run it: a lone nightmare-boss with legendary actions (native T2), a controller add-on beside a flagship fiend, or a recurring dream-stalker that ambushes the party during long rests.
Inguma
Medium fiend (devil), neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINESleeper's Bane. Signature. Inguma is invisible to any creature that is unconscious, asleep, or has the incapacitated condition, and it has advantage on attack rolls against such creatures. A creature that finishes a long rest within 60 feet of Inguma gains no benefit from that rest and must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution save or gain one level of exhaustion.
Floating Grimoires. Three torn spellbooks orbit Inguma. While at least one orbits, it has advantage on Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration, and it can cast its spells without somatic or material components.
Innate Spellcasting. Inguma's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 15, +7 to hit with spell attacks). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components: at will — sleep, fear; 3/day each — phantasmal force, hold person; 1/day each — fear (as a 5th-level slot), dominate person.
Actions
Multiattack. Inguma makes two Strangling Tendril attacks, or it casts a spell and makes one Strangling Tendril attack.
Strangling Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) necrotic damage, and if the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be unable to speak or cast spells with verbal components until the end of its next turn.
Smothering Dream (Recharge 5–6). Inguma exhales a creeping nightmare in a 30-foot cone. Each creature there must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw, taking 22 (5d8) psychic damage and falling unconscious for 1 minute on a failure (waking if it takes damage), or half damage and no unconsciousness on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Drift Through Walls. Bonus Action. Inguma becomes incorporeal until the start of its next turn, allowing it to move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Lashing Tendril. Inguma makes one Strangling Tendril attack.
Whispered Dread (Costs 2 Actions). One creature Inguma can see within 60 feet must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of Inguma until the end of its next turn.
Slip the Veil. Inguma flies up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks and may pass through a wall or door no thicker than 5 feet.
A gaunt, horned wraith crowned in a black halo hovers in the mouth of a ruined arch, its skeletal arms thrown wide as torn grimoires drift around it and a vortex of red-black sinew unspools from the dark.
Inguma, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINECounting Litany (signature). While within 30 feet of the bearer, allies have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, frightened, or put to sleep by a fiend or undead.
Actions
Warding Salt. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 20 ft., one fiend or undead. Hit: 11 (2d8 + 2) radiant damage, and the target can't turn incorporeal until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Wake the Sleeper. When an ally within 30 feet falls unconscious from a spell or effect that is not hit-point damage, the bearer can use its reaction to end that condition on the ally.
A blessed horn of salt and a folded litany-paper, carried by the household elder who refuses to let the night take one more breather.
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 sleep on the cluster, then pick off whoever drops with advantage from Sleeper's Bane. Stay airborne and use Drift Through Walls to deny melee. Kill-priority is the party's healer before it can wake the fallen; pair Inguma with cultists or a flagship boss — at this tier it is a terror, not a wall.
Open with fear to scatter the line, then Smothering Dream the moment two or more cluster. Spend legendary actions on Whispered Dread to keep the front-line frightened (disadvantage on attacks). Kill-priority: anyone with counterspell or mass cures — use Strangling Tendril's verbal-component lockout on them. Solo-capable as a nightmare boss; legendary actions let it play up to ~CR8.
Lead with dominate person on the heaviest hitter, then Smothering Dream to lock down the rest. Drift between walls each round so melee never pins it. When bloodied it stops conserving and chains legendary Lashing Tendrils to silence the casters. Use as the climactic nightmare-warden of a haunted vault.
Put Inguma 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 Inguma?
Its home build is CR 6 (2,300 XP) for a level 5–10 party, and it is solo-capable: legendary actions and Sleeper's Bane let it carry a fight alone, playing up to roughly CR 8. Scale to AC 13/45 HP for tier 1 or AC 18/195 HP for tier 3 using the tiers table.
Can Inguma be a companion or ally?
Not directly — it is a sleeper-strangling fiend with no loyalty. The intended ally is Amalur's Charm (the warding salt and counting-litany), which protects a party from charm, fear, and sleep effects and can wake a fallen comrade once per round.
How do I keep Smothering Dream from feeling like a save-or-die?
It only knocks a target unconscious on a failed Wisdom save, the sleeper wakes the instant it takes damage, and it recharges on 5–6 — so an ally with a free hand can shake them awake. Reserve it for clustered turns and telegraph the inhale a round early to keep it fair.
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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