Makara
Makara — The Encounter
Vedic leviathan that holds the drowning world together · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Makara
Reckoned among the great war-beasts loosed in the final hours of Atlantis, the Makara is no mere brute but a keeper of thresholds. In Vedic waters it is the vahana of the river-mother and the guardian of gates, and so it was bound here: while its kin Cetus delivered judgment and Lusca erased every road of escape, the Makara was set to hold the world together. It planted itself at the failing seams of the city and would not yield, its great body a living buttress against the in-rushing tide. Trunk and tusk, fin and crocodile jaw, it dragged the drowning back from the dark and pinned collapse in place by sheer mass. No recall ever reached it. When at last Atlantis went under, the Makara held still, executing its final order in silent water, anchoring ruin that no longer had anything left to save. It surfaces yet wherever the sea remembers a command never withdrawn.
Run Makara in Sixty Seconds
- It is an anchor, not a boss. The Makara is solo_capable=false. Pair it with a flagship (Cetus, a Tidebound Sentinel) and let it hold a chokepoint while the real threat kills.
- Open by grabbing and dragging under. Trunk-Maw a frontliner, then use Undertow Pull on your reaction to haul them back into the water. A submerged, grappled PC is a drowning PC.
- Kill-priority is whoever it grapples. Free your grappled ally first (escape DC 16) before it drags them down; everything else can wait.
- When bloodied, it does not retreat. It executes its final order to the end. On its death, the swell trips everyone within 20 ft. (DC 15 Str or prone).
- Three ways to run it: gate-guard that won't let the party past; grapple-and-drown ambusher at a ford; or living buttress that keeps a boss un-shovable while it pins the line.
Makara
Large elemental, neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. The Makara can breathe air and water.
Tidebound Anchor. Signature. The Makara is the keystone of the tide. While it remains conscious, allied creatures within 30 ft. that can see it can't be moved against their will by forced movement of less than 20 ft. When the Makara is reduced to 0 hit points, water within 20 ft. surges in a sudden swell: each creature there must succeed on a DC 15 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Actions
Multiattack. The Makara makes two attacks: one with its Trunk-Maw and one with its Tail Slam.
Trunk-Maw. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 19 (3d8 + 5) piercing damage. If the target is a Large or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 16) and the Makara can't use its Trunk-Maw against another target while grappling.
Tail Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or be pushed 10 ft. away.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Undertow Pull (Reaction). When a creature the Makara is grappling tries to move away, the Makara can drag it back into the water, ending its movement and submerging it.
A barnacled leviathan of trunk, fin, and crocodile fang, its serpentine tail coiling through wreckage as it braces a sinking realm against the deep.
Makara, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINELiving Buttress (signature). While within 10 ft. of the Makara, allied creatures have half cover against effects that would push or pull them.
Actions
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) piercing damage.
Reactions
Breakwater. When an adjacent ally takes damage from a forced-movement effect, the Makara takes that damage instead.
A half-grown Makara, all trunk and clumsy fins, that wedges itself before its master and refuses to be swept aside.
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 planting the Makara in a doorway or ford so the party must come to it, then Trunk-Maw the lightest fighter and drag them underwater. If foes cluster, sweep the Tail Slam to scatter them off ledges. Pair it with a caster boss; alone at this tier it is a brutal mini-boss, not a sustained threat.
Open by grappling a frontliner with the Trunk-Maw and using Undertow Pull to keep them in the water and out of the fight. Kill-priority is the escape artist: a grappled, submerged target drowns. This is the anchor piece, so pair it with a flagship like Cetus or a Tidebound Sentinel and let it lock the chokepoint while the boss does damage.
Open by seizing the squishiest target and dragging it under, then Tail Slam to push melee allies away from rescue. When bloodied it fights to the last order, never fleeing. At this tier it is purely an add-on bruiser guarding a larger threat; do not run it solo against a high-level party.
Put Makara 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 Makara?
Its home tier is CR 6 (2,300 XP) for a 5th-10th level party. The stat block scales down to roughly CR 2 for tier 1 and up to about CR 11 for tier 3 using the numbers in the tiers table; traits stay identical, only AC, HP, to-hit, and DC move.
Can Makara be a companion or ally?
The full Makara is built as an adversary and is not solo_capable. For a player-side option use the Riptide Calf companion (AC 14, 80 HP), a half-grown Makara that shields allies from forced movement with its Living Buttress and Breakwater abilities.
How do I keep the grapple-and-drown from feeling unfair?
Telegraph it: describe the trunk coiling before it strikes, allow the escape check (DC 16) and any held-breath rules, and let allies grant advantage by attacking the Makara. It should pressure the party, not silently delete a PC who has no counterplay.
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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