Koguhpuk
Koguhpuk — The Encounter
The Buried Tusker, Inuit dread-beast that walks beneath the ice · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Koguhpuk
The shamans tell of the Koguhpuk as the beast that sleeps under the tundra, its bones surfacing in spring thaw where careless hunters mistook them for fallen giants. To call one up is no small mediation: the spirit-healers must coax it from the frozen dark, and what answers is older than any tribe. The White Runners lash hunting platforms of driftwood and walrus tusk between its shoulders and ride it as a living siege wall against the ice-dragon raiders. It feels little, fears nothing, and remembers cold the way other creatures remember hunger. A single Koguhpuk can carry a war-band across crevasse and floe, breaking trail through drifts that would bury a sled team whole. Spears glance from its hide; fire gutters in the wind that follows it. The animists warn that the beast obeys the drum only so long as the drumming serves the spirits it answers to, and that a Koguhpuk left grieving will walk back into the white and pull the howdah, riders and all, down into the snow.
Run Koguhpuk in Sixty Seconds
- It is a wrecking ball, not a boss the Koguhpuk has no legendary actions and minds nothing on its own. Hand it a rider, shaman, or boss to point it at targets, or it just plows the nearest body.
- Open with the charge move 20+ ft. straight in, hit with the tusks to knock the front-liner prone, then bonus-action Stomp the prone target. That is your biggest single-turn burst, so lead with it.
- Kill-priority is the squishy with the worst STR save walk through their space with Permafrost Tread, fail their save, and they are restrained in the snow, cut off from the group until they dig free.
- When bloodied, it grieves if the warband on its back falls or it drops below half HP, play it as turning to walk back into the white, ignoring small foes to break out of the fight rather than fighting smart.
- Three ways to run it living siege-wall under an archer howdah; a feral lone tusker that just charges and tramples; or a shaman-bound mount that only obeys while the drum beats and rampages if the drummer dies.
Koguhpuk
Huge beast, unaligned
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINETrampling Charge. If the Koguhpuk moves at least 20 ft. straight toward a creature and then hits it with a tusk attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the Koguhpuk can make one stomp attack against it as a bonus action.
Permafrost Tread. (signature). The Koguhpuk ignores difficult terrain made of ice, snow, or frozen ground, and cannot be knocked prone while standing on it. Once per turn when it moves through a creature's space, that creature must succeed on a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or be buried in churned ice and snow, becoming restrained until it spends an action to dig free (no action while the beast occupies its space).
Actions
Multiattack. The Koguhpuk makes two attacks: one with its tusks and one with its stomp.
Tusks. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 27 (4d8 + 7) piercing damage.
Stomp. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one prone creature. Hit: 24 (4d6 + 7) bludgeoning damage.
A mountain of matted fur and curling tusks lumbers from the white horizon, a lashed-bone howdah of fur-clad hunters riding high on its back. The Koguhpuk is the great buried beast of Inuit memory, dug from the permafrost and walking again.
Koguhpuk, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Tactics (signature). The Houndmaster has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of its sled-dogs is within 5 ft. of the target and not incapacitated.
Actions
Bone Harpoon. Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) piercing damage, and a Large or smaller target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength save or be pulled 10 ft. toward the Houndmaster.
Reactions
Mark the Quarry. When an enemy the Houndmaster can see ends its turn, the Houndmaster designates it; the next attack against that target before the start of the Houndmaster's next turn is made with advantage.
A fur-cloaked driver perched in the howdah, harpoon at the ready, whistling commands to the dogs that flank the great beast's legs.
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 by charging the front-line tank to knock it prone, then stomp it as a bonus action. If the party clusters, plow straight through with Permafrost Tread to bury one of them restrained. It is a brute add-on, not a thinker; pair it with a White Runner archer or shaman who actually directs the violence.
Trample the heaviest melee target prone on turn one, then stomp. Kill-priority is whoever has the lowest Strength save, so it can bury them in snow and split the party. Keep it as the wrecking ball beneath a mounted boss or caster who picks the targets.
Open with a 40-ft. charge into the formation, prone the tank with the tusks, then bonus-action stomp for a brutal opener. Walk through clusters to leave one PC restrained and isolated. This is the centerpiece beast of an Inuit war-band: pair it with the riders in its howdah and a shaman who buffs it, then let it grind the front line while the platform rains arrows.
Put Koguhpuk 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 Koguhpuk?
Its home tier is CR 11 (Tier 3, levels 11-15): AC 18, 218 HP, +11 to hit, save DC 17. It is not solo-capable, so it carries native-tier numbers with no band drop. Scaled-down stat lines for Tier 1 (~CR 2) and Tier 2 (~CR 6) are provided in the tiers block for lower-level tables.
Can Koguhpuk be a companion or ally?
Yes. As an Inuit war-mount it works as a shaman's or hunter's beast, and a White Runner Houndmaster (AC 14, 130 HP) is statted as its bound companion to ride the howdah and mark targets. Treat the Koguhpuk as a mount that obeys the drum, and have the rider direct its attacks since the beast has Intelligence 3.
Why does the Koguhpuk bury creatures instead of just trampling them?
Its Permafrost Tread trait turns its sheer mass into a battlefield-control tool: walking through a space churns ice and snow that restrains a creature who fails a Dexterity save. Use it to split the party and isolate a vulnerable PC, then bring the tusks and stomp down on whoever is stuck and prone.
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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