Menuo
Menuo — The Encounter
Baltic Moon-Lord who wanes and waxes across the sky · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Menuo
In the old Baltic skies, Menuo is the Moon — first husband of the Sun, who wandered from her bed to court the morning star and was struck for his unfaithfulness, his face cleft and ever-changing as penance. So the grimoires of the northern forests name him: a fickle but not unkind power, lord of night-paths, oaths sworn under no witness but the moon, and the slow tides of luck. Soldiers once prayed to him before marching, for the waning moon was thought to drain an enemy's strength as it drained its own light. He keeps no court and answers to no throne; he simply turns, full to dark and dark to full, indifferent and inexorable. Those who bargain with him learn that his gifts wax and wane as he does — brilliant tonight, gone by morning — and that a promise made beneath his crescent is binding in ways daylight oaths are not.
Run Menuo in Sixty Seconds
- He is a caster, not a brawler — keep him 15+ feet from the party, open with Crescent Lash to blind their strongest melee, and never let him get surrounded.
- Track the moon phase — jot new/waxing/full/waning on a sticky note; when full and bloodied his radiant damage maximizes, and when waning he shifts away from attacks.
- Lunar Tide is the threat — fire the 30-ft. cone the moment two or more PCs bunch up; it damages AND drags them toward him, setting up his blinding lash.
- When bloodied, lean on Eclipse and Tidewalk: blind whoever just hit him and teleport into the nearest shadow to reset the fight.
- Three ways to run him — a lonely moon-oracle ambushing at a shrine; the arcane artillery behind a giant or knight; or a duo with Aushrine the morning star for a night-and-dawn boss pair.
Menuo
Medium celestial, chaotic neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEWaxing and Waning. Menuo tracks a lunar phase that advances each round, cycling new → waxing → full → waning. While waxing or full, his attacks and saving throws against him gain no special effect to him but his radiant damage is maximized once he is bloodied. While waning or new, he is hard to pin down: the first time each round a creature targets him with an attack, he may shift 5 ft. without provoking opportunity attacks.
Innate Spellcasting. Menuo's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14, +7 to hit with spell attacks). He casts without material components: at will — dancing lights, light, sacred flame; 3/day each — moonbeam, misty step; 1/day each — hold monster, wall of force.
Actions
Multiattack. Menuo makes two Crescent Lash attacks, or casts a spell and makes one Crescent Lash attack.
Crescent Lash. Melee Spell Attack: +7 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 4) radiant damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn.
Lunar Tide (Recharge 5–6). Menuo sweeps a ribbon of moonlight in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in the area makes a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 27 (6d8) radiant damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. Creatures that fail are also pulled 10 feet toward Menuo by the tide.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Tidewalk. Bonus Action. Menuo expends a use of misty step to teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space he can see that is dimly lit or in darkness.
Eclipse. Reaction. When a creature Menuo can see hits him with an attack, he wraps himself in shadow; he gains resistance to that attack's damage and the attacker is blinded until the start of its next turn (DC 14 Constitution save negates the blindness).
A serene, robed figure crowned in a circlet and bearing a crescent-topped staff, Menuo rises from broken stone while ribbons of violet-and-rose moonlight coil through the night behind him like the turning of the tides.
Menuo, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEDawnward Pull (signature). While within 30 feet of Menuo, Menuo and Menuo each have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened — the bound lovers steady one another across the divide of night and day.
Actions
Starlance. Ranged Spell Attack: +6 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) radiant damage, and the target sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius until the start of its next turn, unable to benefit from being unseen.
Reactions
Veil of Dusk. Reaction. When an ally within 30 feet is hit by an attack, Menuo dims the air around them, imposing disadvantage on the triggering attack roll. If it now misses, the attacker is left dazzled (disadvantage on its next attack).
The morning star whom Menuo courted, now bound to walk the boundary of his sky — a slender figure of pale fire who fights at his side though dawn and night may never truly meet.
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 from cover with Crescent Lash to blind your party's heaviest hitter, then keep 15 ft. of distance. Kill-priority: he is a glass cannon — rush him before Lunar Tide recharges. Pair him with a frontline brute so this fragile moon-caster isn't your whole encounter.
Open by misty-stepping to high or dim ground, then lead with Lunar Tide if two or more PCs cluster (it pulls them toward him and softens the line). If clustered melee threatens him, Eclipse the biggest hitter and Tidewalk away into darkness. Kill-priority: blinded characters — break line of sight to deny him advantage. This is the centerpiece add-on caster; pair him with Aushrine or a frontline guardian.
Open with hold monster on the party's controller, then Lunar Tide the cluster and wall-of-force the survivors apart. When bloodied his full-moon radiant maximizes — burst him down fast. Kill-priority: end the hold, then collapse on him before he resets distance. Pair with summoned minions so he can kite while they screen.
Put Menuo 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 Menuo?
Menuo is built at CR 6 (2,300 XP) in his native tier, a Tier 2 challenge for parties of levels 5–10. The stat block also provides scaled numbers for Tier 1 (levels 1–4) and Tier 3 (levels 11–15) so you can drop him into almost any campaign without rebuilding him.
Can Menuo be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a fickle but not malevolent moon-power, he makes a striking patron or temporary ally — his moonbeam and hold monster excel at controlling a battlefield from range. He fights beside Aushrine, the bound morning-star, whose Veil of Dusk and Starlance let the pair cover allies and light up hidden foes.
Is Menuo a solo boss?
No — Menuo has no legendary actions and is deliberately fragile for his tier, so he is designed as a centerpiece add-on rather than a one-creature encounter. Pair him with a frontline guardian, summoned minions, or Aushrine so he can kite and cast while something else holds the line.
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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