Orko
Orko — The Encounter
Basque god of thunder, who hurls the storm's own spear · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Orko
In the old Basque telling, Orko is the voice of the storm — the thunder that the herdsmen of the Pyrenees heard as the god speaking, and the lightning they called his hurled spear. He keeps to the high crags and the bruised undersides of cloud, and where he passes the air cracks shut behind him. Shepherds set out milk and left the upland pastures when his temper rose, for he is no enemy of folk yet no friend either; he answers only to the weather and the wild. Some say he and the wood-warden Basajaun share the same lonely high country, the one guarding beast and tree, the other ruling the sky above them. To bargain with Orko is to bargain with the tempest: bring him an offering of iron struck by lightning, speak plainly, and do not flinch when the sky goes white — for he reads cowardice in a heartbeat and rewards it with a closer bolt.
Run Orko in Sixty Seconds
- Stay airborne. Orko hovers and resists nonmagical weapons — keep him above the melee and let ranged lightning do the work; he only drops to spear-range to finish a stunned target.
- Open with the chain. Lead with Forked Bolt against two clustered foes, or Call the Tempest if three-plus are bunched — punish parties that stack up.
- When bloodied, retreat upward. Use Ride the Wind to break line-of-sight and reposition; let Grounding Strike and Thunderous Wake tax anyone who pursues.
- Three ways to run him: lone storm-herald terrorizing a mountain pass (native T2), artillery add-on flanking a flagship boss, or a wrathful weather-god the party must appease rather than kill.
- Kill-priority for the DM: have Orko target the squishiest caster or the one foe with lightning immunity disabled — he reads weakness and aims the closer bolt at it.
Orko
Medium celestial (storm spirit), chaotic neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEStorm-Borne. Orko ignores difficult terrain caused by weather, and weather of any kind imposes no penalty on his attacks or movement. He can hover, and is unaffected by strong wind.
Thunderous Wake. Signature. The first time on each of his turns that Orko moves at least 20 feet, the air closes behind him with a clap. Each creature within 5 feet of the space he left takes 5 (1d10) thunder damage. Creatures that fail his save become Deafened until the start of his next turn.
Actions
Multiattack. Orko makes two attacks with his Storm Spear, or hurls Forked Bolt twice.
Storm Spear. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8+4) piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) lightning damage. On a hit, the target cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn.
Forked Bolt. Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 120 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d8) lightning damage, and the bolt leaps to a second creature within 15 feet of the first that Orko can see, dealing 7 (2d6) lightning damage to it (no second attack roll).
Call the Tempest (Recharge 5-6). Orko points his spear skyward and a column of storm crashes down in a 20-foot-radius, 40-foot-high cylinder centered on a point he can see within 120 feet. Each creature in the area makes a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 28 (8d6) lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. The area becomes lightly obscured by rain and counts as difficult terrain until the start of Orko's next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Ride the Wind (Bonus Action). Orko flies up to half his speed without provoking opportunity attacks, trailing storm.
Grounding Strike (Reaction). When a creature Orko can see within 30 feet hits him with an attack, he answers with a lash of lightning: the attacker takes 7 (2d6) lightning damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be pushed 10 feet away.
Wild-haired and sinewy, Orko stalks across a rocky crag above churning stormcloud, his body laced with arcing blue lightning and his ornate thunder-spear half-made of the bolt itself.
Orko, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEStormcloak (signature). While within 10 feet of you, allies have resistance to lightning damage, and you have advantage on saving throws against being knocked Prone.
Actions
Sleet Lash. Ranged Spell Attack: +6 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8+3) cold damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of its next turn.
Reactions
Updraft. When you or an ally within 20 feet falls, Orko's winds halve the fall distance and you take no damage from that fall.
A coiling living squall that trails Orko like a hound, half rain and half wind, snapping at anything that strays too close to its master.
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 at range with Forked Bolt to chain two clustered foes, then keep flying just out of melee reach. Kill-priority anyone who can pin him down or silence casting. Pair him with a ground-bound brute so the party cannot ignore one threat for the other.
Open with Call the Tempest on the tightest cluster, then hover and alternate Forked Bolt chains with Ride the Wind repositioning so melee never lands a full turn on him. When bloodied, fall back to high ground and let Thunderous Wake and Grounding Strike punish anyone who chases. He is a skirmisher — pair him with a sturdier melee anchor so the party splits focus.
Lead with Call the Tempest, then Multiattack Forked Bolt to scatter lightning across the back line every round. Kill-priority the party's lightning-resistant or flying threats first. As an add-on to a flagship boss, position him as the artillery piece that punishes any cluster while the boss holds the front.
Put Orko 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 Orko?
Natively CR 6 (Tier 2, ~levels 5-10): AC 16, 123 HP, +7 to hit, save DC 15. The included tier table rescales him to CR 2-ish for levels 1-4 and CR 11-ish for levels 11-15 — same traits and actions, only the numbers move.
Can Orko be a companion or ally?
As a chaotic storm-god he makes a volatile patron rather than a tame ally, but the record includes a companion option — Idurri, the Following Squall (AC 15, 74 HP) — a living storm that shields allies from lightning and softens falls. Use Idurri if a player bargains the god's favor or tames a fragment of his tempest.
Is Orko safe to use commercially?
Yes. Orko is drawn from genuine Basque (Euskal) mythology — the god of thunder whose hurled spear is the lightning — which is public domain. The stat block uses only SRD 5.1 mechanics and generic creature types, so there is no Wizards of the Coast Product Identity involved.
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
Played Orko at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
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