Nehebkau
Nehebkau — The Encounter
Four-armed serpent general of the Nile, venom and blades made one · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Nehebkau
The river-priests name him Nehebkau, He Who Harnesses the Souls, and they whisper that he was no god at birth but a brilliant war-strategist drowned and remade in forbidden transmutation. From that ritual rose a thing of serpent and man: the cold mind of a general grafted onto a venom-veined body, four arms grown to carry four curved blades so that no shieldwall might guard every angle at once. He does not roar before battle. He coils in the reeds and the temple shadow, letting his lieutenants bleed the line, then slithers into the gap and reaps. His bite carries the slow poison of the marsh, and his counsel carries the slower poison of patience. Soldiers say a wall held against him is a wall already lost, for he fights every flank himself. Where his standard rises, the dead are counted in the hundreds and the survivors swear his blades were already wet before the first horn sounded.
Run Nehebkau in Sixty Seconds
- What he is A four-armed serpent general: a venom-soaked melee assassin, not a caster and not a wall. He is an add-on to a bigger boss.
- Open with Venom Bite on the lowest-AC backliner to land the poisoned condition, then Multiattack with khopeshes on the same target.
- Kill-priority Casters and healers. He has the speed and reach to reach them; protect your backline first.
- When bloodied Serpent Recoil every round, biting then sliding 10 ft. so no single defender can lock him down.
- Three ways to run him Skirmisher (dive, bite, retreat), pin-and-reap (with the Brood grappling for him), or shieldbreaker (let Four-Armed Reaper punish anyone who flanks).
Nehebkau
Large monstrosity, lawful evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEFour-Armed Reaper. Nehebkau wields a khopesh in each of four hands. He does not suffer disadvantage on attacks while flanked or surrounded, and a creature that ends its turn within 5 ft. of two or more of his blades has disadvantage on its next attack roll against him.
Coiled Footing. Nehebkau's serpent body cannot be knocked prone, and he ignores difficult terrain.
Actions
Multiattack. Nehebkau makes three khopesh attacks. He may replace one with a Venom Bite.
Khopesh. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8+4) slashing damage.
Venom Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) piercing damage plus 10 (3d6) poison damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the end of its next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Serpent Recoil. Reaction. When a creature within 5 ft. hits Nehebkau with a melee attack, he may slither 10 ft. without provoking opportunity attacks and make one Khopesh attack against that creature.
A black-scaled serpent the length of a war-barge rears up into a horned, four-armed torso, each hand spinning a blood-slick khopesh while a forked tongue tastes the air for the next throat to open.
Nehebkau, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEVenom Aura (signature). A creature that starts its turn within 5 ft. of the Brood takes 4 (1d8) poison damage.
Actions
Constricting Coils. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 14) and restrained until the grapple ends.
Reactions
Cover the General. When Nehebkau is targeted by an attack while within 10 ft., the Brood may impose disadvantage on that attack roll by rearing into its path.
A lesser fang-serpent of his hatch-brood, kept close to seize and pin the prey Nehebkau means to open.
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 Venom Bite on the squishiest caster, then fall back behind the front line. If clustered, slither between two PCs so Four-Armed Reaper punishes whoever stays adjacent. Kill-priority is healers; pair him with a tougher Egyptian war-titan so he plays the assassin, not the wall.
Open by closing to a flank and Multiattacking the lowest-AC target, leading with Venom Bite to stack the poisoned condition. When bloodied, use Serpent Recoil every round to bite-and-slide, never letting a melee PC pin him. He is the X piece, not the boss: pair him with a flagship titan and let him reap softened backline.
Open by diving the squishiest two PCs and Venom Biting both across the round. If clustered, Four-Armed Reaper makes surrounding him a trap, so dare them to flank. Kill-priority is concentration casters; use Serpent Recoil to peel off any tank and pair him with a larger solo threat that anchors the party.
Put Nehebkau 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 Nehebkau?
Natively CR 6 (2,300 XP) at tier 2, sized for level 5-10 parties. The record also gives CR 2-ish (tier 1) and CR 11-ish (tier 3) stat lines so you can drop him into any table. He is not solo_capable: run him as a deadly add-on beside a flagship boss, not as the lone encounter.
Can Nehebkau be a companion or ally?
He is built as an adversary, but a venom-lord NPC or a redeemed serpent-general could fight at the party's side at the same numbers. His Apophis-Brood, Bound is the ready-made companion piece: AC 14, 76 HP, it grapples prey and rears to shield its master.
How do I make him a real threat without overwhelming the party?
Keep him mobile. His danger is reach plus the poisoned condition, not raw HP, so let him bite-and-slide rather than stand and trade. If the party focuses him down, that means they are ignoring the flagship boss he was paired with, which is exactly the trade you want.
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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