King Minos
King Minos — The Encounter
Serpent-Tailed Judge of the Dead, Crowned King of Crete · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is King Minos
Once the law-giving king of Crete, lauded in life for justice so exact that even the gods deferred to his rulings, Minos was set after death to weigh the dead and assign each soul its proper place. The old grimoires hold that he no longer needs a tongue to judge: his monstrous tail coils about each arriving spirit, and the number of its windings declares the depth to which the guilty must descend. He hears no defense and grants no mercy, for in life he learned that mercy is merely justice unfinished. The horned mask he wears is said to hide a face long since unmade by the labyrinthine grief of his own house, and those who look beneath it find only the cold arithmetic of sentence. Bargain with him at your peril — Minos keeps every oath ever sworn in his ledger, and will name yours back to you the moment you break it.
Run King Minos in Sixty Seconds
- The tail is the whole fight. Open by grappling the party's most mobile threat and declaring them condemned — condemned creatures save against everything Minos does at disadvantage.
- Kill-priority: whoever can break a grapple or dispel fear. Use Read the Record on that creature; if the party can't free the condemned, Minos snowballs.
- Hold Pronounce Doom until two or more PCs bunch up or until you can hit the healer — 36 psychic plus frightened for a minute swings the encounter.
- When bloodied he grapples a SECOND target with Lash and leans entirely on legendary actions, repeating failed saves with Verdict to lock a victim out of the fight.
- Three ways to run him: (1) lone enthroned boss with legendary actions; (2) flanked by his severed Sentenced Coil for two grapples a round; (3) a tier-1/2 mini-boss — drop the band, ignore legendary actions, and let one grapple-plus-Scepter loop carry the scene.
King Minos
Large fiend (devil), lawful evil
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINEJudging Gaze. Minos perceives the guilt of every creature he can see. He has advantage on Insight and Intimidation checks against any creature, and he automatically knows whether a creature he can see has ever broken an oath.
Sentence of the Coils. Signature. Minos's enormous serpentine tail winds around his sentenced. When he hits a creature with his Tail, he may declare that creature condemned until the start of his next turn. While condemned, the creature has disadvantage on saving throws against Minos's effects, and the first time it tries to move away from Minos before then it must succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or be pulled 10 ft. back toward him.
Magic Resistance. Minos has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Actions
Multiattack. Minos makes one Scepter of Judgment attack and one Tail attack. He may replace the Scepter attack with a use of Pronounce Doom (recharge 5–6).
Scepter of Judgment. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage plus 9 (2d8) psychic damage as the verdict lands.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 16) if it is Large or smaller. Until the grapple ends the target is restrained, and Minos can constrict it for 11 (2d10) bludgeoning damage at the start of each of his turns.
Pronounce Doom (Recharge 5–6). Minos names a creature he can see within 60 ft. and reads its sins aloud. The target must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw, taking 36 (8d8) psychic damage and becoming frightened of Minos for 1 minute on a failure, or half damage and no fear on a success. A condemned target makes this save with disadvantage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Coil and Drag (Reaction). When a creature grappled by Minos's tail is hit by an ally's attack, Minos may move it up to 10 ft. and position it to share the throne's reach, granting that ally advantage on the next attack against it this turn.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Lash (1 action). Minos makes one Tail attack.
Read the Record (1 action). Minos chooses one creature within 60 ft. It must succeed on a DC 16 Charisma save or have disadvantage on its next attack roll or ability check as its failings are recited.
Verdict (2 actions). Minos uses Pronounce Doom if it is available, or forces one condemned creature within 60 ft. to repeat its last failed save against him.
A lean, ashen judge sits enthroned upon a writhing heap of the damned, a horned ceremonial crown masking his face while a vast serpentine tail loops endlessly about him — wound as many times as the sins it will sentence.
King Minos, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINELiving Verdict (signature). The severed length of Minos's tail acts on his command. While it grapples a creature, that creature counts as condemned for Minos's traits and actions.
Actions
Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15) and restrained until the grapple ends.
Reactions
Tighten. When a grappled creature attempts to escape, the Coil deals 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage to it whether or not the attempt succeeds.
A nightmare length of serpentine muscle, scaled black and crowned with no head — only an endless capacity to bind.
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 the Tail to grapple your party's mobile striker and anchor them in melee, then Scepter the trapped target. If foes cluster, save Pronounce Doom to frighten the back line. Kill-priority is whoever can break the grapple — keep them condemned. Pair him with cultists who guard his throne.
Lead with Tail to grapple, declare condemned, then drag the victim into Scepter range every round. Hold Pronounce Doom for a cluster or the healer. Focus the strongest-Strength PC — they're likeliest to escape the coils. Place him behind a wall of weaker bodies so melee must wade through to reach the throne.
Run him as a solo boss: grapple a key PC turn one, keep them condemned, and chain Pronounce Doom with Verdict legendary actions to delete a save. Spend Lash to grapple a second target, Read the Record to blunt the party nuker. Kill-priority is anyone who removes the frightened/grappled — a single dispel undoes his whole engine, so Read the Record at that caster.
Put King Minos 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 King Minos?
At his native tier he is CR 11 (7,200 XP), built for parties of levels 11–15 as a solo-capable boss with legendary actions. The tiers block also gives ready-to-run CR-2 and CR-6 versions for levels 1–4 and 5–10 — same traits and tactics, only the numbers move.
Can King Minos be a companion or ally?
Not as the judge himself — he serves no one. But his severed tail, the Sentenced Coil (AC 15, 117 HP), can be fielded as a bound grappling ally that constricts and restrains on your behalf, counting its victims as condemned for any nearby effect.
Is the serpentine tail a real attack or just scenery?
It is his primary control tool. The Tail grapples and restrains at 15 ft. reach, constricts every turn, and feeds his Sentence of the Coils trait — condemning a target so it loses its grip on saving throws. Free the grappled creature and you cripple the entire encounter.
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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