Lamassu
Lamassu — The Encounter
Bearded guardian of the gate, lion-bodied and eagle-winged · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Lamassu
Set into the gateways of old Mesopotamia, the lamassu is the watcher whose stone shoulders carried the names of kings. Sculptors gave it five legs so that, seen from the front, it stood at rest, and seen from the side, it strode forever forward, ever marching, never leaving its post. It bears the head of a wise sovereign, the body of a lion or bull for unyielding might, and the wings of an eagle to bear word between the heavens and the throne. Travelers carved its likeness at the threshold to turn back the formless terrors of the desert night, and scribes invoked it as a household spirit of protection. To pass beneath a true lamassu is to be measured: the pure of purpose walk on, while the false feel its gaze settle like a weight upon the chest. It does not hunt. It waits, and it remembers every face that has crossed its gate.
Run Lamassu in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the gate The lamassu fights to keep a threshold, not to chase. Once it carves Gate-Ward, attacks inside that space have disadvantage, so the smart play is to fight it on its own line and refuse to be baited away.
- Open with the roar The instant two or more PCs stand in a 30-foot cone, fire Radiant Roar, frightened plus 7d6 radiant resets the whole melee. Otherwise just Claw twice and knock the front-liner prone.
- Kill-priority Whoever is trying to slip past the threshold or reach what the lamassu guards. It will body-block and burn Warding Blessing to keep that one ally upright.
- Three ways to run it Sentinel (rooted to one doorway, pure attrition), Bodyguard (shadows the boss, spends reactions on them), or Judge (lets the pure-hearted pass and only strikes the false, a roleplay gate, not a fight).
- Remember the resistances Nonmagical weapons and radiant barely scratch it, so magic damage and forced movement are how you crack the gate, drag it off its warded space and it loses its best trick.
Lamassu
Large celestial, lawful good
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEMagic Resistance. The lamassu has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Gate-Ward (Signature). The lamassu carves an unseen threshold around a doorway, stair, or 20-foot space it has guarded for 1 minute. While the lamassu is within 30 feet of that warded space, hostile creatures inside it have disadvantage on attack rolls, and the lamassu has advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks to read their intent. A lamassu never abandons a threshold it has sworn to keep.
Actions
Multiattack. The lamassu makes two Claw attacks.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8+5) slashing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Radiant Roar (Recharge 5-6). The lamassu looses a thunder of judgment in a 30-foot cone. Each creature there makes a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw, taking 24 (7d6) radiant damage and becoming frightened until the end of its next turn on a failure, or half as much damage and not frightened on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Warding Blessing. As a reaction when an ally the lamassu can see within 30 feet is hit by an attack, the lamassu grants that ally a +3 bonus to AC against the triggering attack, possibly causing it to miss.
Hewn as a colossal gate-beast, this lamassu wears the calm face of a crowned, bearded king atop a lion's body and a bull's strength, its vast feathered wings sweeping back as it stands sentinel over a graven temple stair and heraldic shield.
Lamassu, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINELesser Ward (signature). Allies within 10 feet of the Lamassu have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Actions
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) piercing damage.
Reactions
Interpose. When an adjacent ally is hit by an attack, the Lamassu takes half the damage in their place.
A half-grown gate-spirit, all stubby wings and an earnest bearded scowl, that plants itself between danger and those it has chosen to keep.
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 claiming a doorway with Gate-Ward, then dare the party to come through it. Save Radiant Roar for when two or more foes cluster in the cone. Kill-priority is whoever tries to slip past the threshold; pair it with a bigger temple boss as the immovable wall.
Stand in the warded space and never leave it; let attackers eat disadvantage while you Claw to prone the front-liner. Open with Radiant Roar the moment three or more bunch up, then spend Warding Blessing on whichever ally the boss most needs alive. This is the anchor piece, not the centerpiece, pair it with a flagship sorcerer or king.
Hold the chokepoint and grind, the warded zone makes it the worst place in the room to fight. Roar on cooldown into clusters, Claw-and-prone the heaviest melee threat, and reserve Warding Blessing for the killing blow aimed at your liege. Kill-priority remains anyone breaching the gate; deploy it beside a Tier 3 boss as the gate it can never get past.
Put Lamassu 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 Lamassu?
Natively CR 6 (2,300 XP), built as a Tier 2 add-on guardian for parties of levels 5-10. The record also provides scaled Tier 1 (levels 1-4) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) stat lines so you can drop it into any tier without rebuilding it.
Can Lamassu be a companion or ally?
Yes. A lamassu is lawful good and reads intent before it strikes, so a party of clear conscience can earn its escort or convince it to ward their camp. The included Shedu-Whelp, Bound is a lighter bound-guardian version for a player or NPC who wants a portable threshold-keeper.
Is Lamassu a solo boss?
No. It has no legendary actions and is an anchor, not a centerpiece. Pair it with a flagship threat (a sorcerer-king, a temple tyrant, a djinn) and let the lamassu hold the chokepoint while the real boss does the damage.
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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