Punga
Punga — The Encounter
Ancestor of Sharks, Lizards, and All Misshapen Things · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Punga
Hear of Punga, child of the deep ones, from whom descend all things crooked and unlovely. The old chants name him sire of sharks, of lizards, of rays and skinks and every creature that men call ugly; when a fisherman hauls up some scaled horror with too many fins, he cries that it is one of Punga's children and casts it back lest the ancestor take offense. Punga dwells where the reef breaks against black rock, half in the tide and half upon the shore, and the deformed of land and sea answer when he calls them. He is not cruel, only proud of his misbegotten lineage, and woe to the one who mocks the shape of a thing that Punga has made. To insult the deformed before him is to invite the swell that drowns canoes and the brood that boils up from the foam to drag the mocker down.
Run Punga in Sixty Seconds
- Keep him wet — Punga wants the fight at the tideline. If the party drags him onto dry land he loses Slippery and Submerge; if they let him stay in the surf he is nearly untouchable.
- Open with the pull — lead Tentacle Lash, drag the weakest hero 10 ft. into Bite range, grapple at DC 16, and start drowning them. That tempo forces the party to react to him.
- Kill-priority is the grappled rescue — the held character is on a drowning clock, so the table will spend turns freeing them instead of damaging Punga. That is the trap.
- When bloodied — Submerge into deep water (attacks at disadvantage), Spawn the Brood every round, and let his misshapen children finish the spellcasters while he recovers.
- Three ways to run him — a lone tideline boss (native T2, solo); the brood-father flanked by Reef-Get add-ons; or a tier-3 reef finale beside a bigger leviathan.
Punga
Large monstrosity, chaotic neutral
CR 9 · 5,000 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. Punga can breathe air and water.
Sire of the Misshapen. Signature. Punga is the ancestor of every ugly and deformed thing of sea and shore. Beasts and monstrosities of CR 1 or lower have disadvantage on attack rolls against Punga, and at the start of each of his turns Punga may telepathically call to one such creature within 120 ft., commanding it to move up to its speed toward a target he designates (no action required).
Actions
Multiattack. Punga makes one Bite attack and two Tentacle Lash attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it is grappled (escape DC 16) and Punga cannot bite another target while grappling.
Tentacle Lash. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength save or be pulled up to 10 ft. toward Punga.
Surging Tide (Recharge 5-6). Punga summons a crashing swell in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 15 Strength saving throw, taking 28 (8d6) bludgeoning damage and being knocked prone and pushed 15 ft. on a failed save, or half damage and no further effect on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Slippery (Reaction). When a creature Punga can see hits him with a melee attack while he is in or adjacent to water, Punga can move up to 15 ft. without provoking opportunity attacks.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Tentacle Lash. Punga makes one Tentacle Lash attack.
Submerge (Costs 1 Action). Punga moves up to his swim speed. If he ends this movement in water, attacks against him are made with disadvantage until the start of his next turn.
Spawn the Brood (Costs 2 Actions). Punga calls his misshapen children. Two creatures of CR 1/4 or lower (such as a giant lizard or a reef shark) rise from the surrounding water in unoccupied spaces within 30 ft. and act on Punga's initiative.
A towering fish-headed ancestor-spirit crowned with a sweeping dorsal crest and fin-frilled wings, tentacled arms uncoiling from scaled shoulders as he rises from a barnacled sea-mount.
Punga, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack of the Misshapen (signature). The Punga has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of its allies is within 5 ft. of that creature and isn't incapacitated.
Actions
Raking Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6 + 4) piercing damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 ft. until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Tidewise. When a creature it can see ends its turn within 5 ft. of water, the Punga can move up to half its speed toward that creature.
A hunched, over-finned thing of teeth and scale, one of the ancestor's countless deformed children, loosed upon the shallows to harry trespassers.
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.
Run Punga as a looming reef-terror who never leaves the water's edge. Open with Tentacle Lash to drag the squishiest hero into Bite range, then grapple and drown them at the shoreline. Make the party fight on his terms by the tide; kill-priority is anyone who breaks his grapple.
His home tier and a true solo boss. Open by yanking a target in with double Tentacle Lash, then Bite-grapple and hold them under. Save Surging Tide for when the party clusters, and spend legendary actions on Submerge to deny attacks and Spawn the Brood to swarm casters. When bloodied, retreat into deep water and let the children do the chewing.
Scale up for a tier-3 climax by pairing Punga with a larger leviathan or kraken-priest as the lieutenant of the reef. Lead with Surging Tide to scatter the line, grapple-drown the controller, and burn every legendary action on Spawn the Brood so the deep keeps replacing his losses. Kill-priority is the brood-summons only after the heroes drop him below half.
Put Punga 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 Punga?
His native build is CR 9 (5,000 XP) at tier 2, designed as a solo centerpiece thanks to his legendary actions. Drop him to roughly CR 4 for a tier-1 party, or push him to about CR 13 with the tier-3 numbers when he headlines a reef finale.
Can Punga be a companion or ally?
As a proud ancestor-spirit he is far too willful to follow orders, but his brood will serve. Use the Reef-Get statblock as a player ally or summoned guardian — a deformed shark-child loosed to harry the party's enemies in the shallows.
Why is Punga a monstrosity and not a fiend or deity?
In Maori tradition Punga is the ancestor of sharks, lizards, rays, and all misshapen creatures — a primordial sire of beasts rather than an infernal power. Statting him as a Large monstrosity with the Sire of the Misshapen trait keeps him true to that folklore: a being defined by the ugly lineage he commands.
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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