Sha-Kepri
Sha-Kepri — The Encounter
Pyramid Guardian; warden of buried tombs, master of earth and fire · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Sha-Kepri
Where the dead kings of the Nile were laid down with the relics of slain gods, the priest-engineers set a warden that would never sleep. Sha-Kepri, the Pyramid Guardian, was raised from quarried stone and sealed with the heart-fire of the desert, charged to shelter Seth's buried remains from grave-robber and rival cult alike. It does not eat, tire, or fear. It moves through sand and worked stone as a swimmer through water, surfacing without warning beneath those who would defile the tomb, and the molten seams of its armor vent furnace-heat upon trespassers. Scribes record that it answers only the binding words of its makers, long dust, and so guards its charge with the patient cruelty of architecture itself. To stand before it is to stand before the mountain of the dead made to walk, the sand at your ankles already reaching upward like the fingers of those it has buried before.
Run Sha-Kepri in Sixty Seconds
- It's a tank, not a striker. Sha-Kepri exists to absorb actions and protect a buried objective or a bigger boss. Play it patient: it never needs to chase.
- Open from below. Burrow on turn one, surface adjacent to the backline with Earth Glide, and take the advantaged Stone Fist on a caster.
- Kill-priority: the squishy back rank. Stone Fist push + Shifting Sands separates one PC from the healer; vent fire when three or more bunch up.
- When bloodied, dive underground at end of turn for half cover, recharge Searing Vent, and surface where they least want you.
- Three ways to run it: dungeon wall (guards a door/relic, never leaves), ambush predator (tremorsense + burrow hit-and-run), or anvil beside a flagship caster who needs a bodyguard.
Sha-Kepri
Large construct, lawful neutral
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEMagic Resistance. The guardian has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Earth Glide. Signature. Sha-Kepri can burrow through sand, stone, and worked masonry without disturbing it. When it ends its turn underground it has half cover, and the first attack it makes after surfacing within 5 feet of a creature has advantage.
Tomb-Forged. When Sha-Kepri is reduced to 0 hit points, the ground beneath it erupts: each creature within 10 feet must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 10 (3d6) fire damage and be knocked prone as the guardian collapses into rubble.
Actions
Multiattack. Sha-Kepri makes two Stone Fist attacks. It can replace one with Searing Vent if available.
Stone Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8+5) bludgeoning damage. On a hit against a creature, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be pushed 10 feet.
Searing Vent (Recharge 5-6). Sha-Kepri exhales molten breath from the seams of its plate in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 28 (8d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Shifting Sands. Reaction. When a creature Sha-Kepri can see moves into reach, the guardian may churn the earth at its feet. The triggering creature must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or have its speed reduced to 0 until the end of its next turn.
A towering golden colossus of carved stone and tomb-plate, its joints glowing with banked red fire, Sha-Kepri rises from the dunes amid a crown of grasping sand-claws.
Sha-Kepri, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEBurrowing Swarm (signature). The scarab can move through any space large enough for a Tiny creature and ignores difficult terrain made of sand or loose earth. Attacks against it from creatures it has burrowed past have disadvantage.
Actions
Mandible Rend. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) piercing damage plus 5 (2d4) fire damage.
Reactions
Carapace Ward. Reaction. When an ally within 5 feet is hit by an attack, the scarab interposes its shell, reducing the damage by 7 (2d6).
A hound-sized scarab of beaten bronze that scuttles in the guardian's wake, its shell still hot from the tomb-furnaces that forged it.
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 surfacing from beneath the cluster with Earth Glide for an advantaged Stone Fist, then knock the squishiest caster prone. Hold Searing Vent until two or more PCs are within the cone. Pair it with a tomb-cult leader; it is the wall, not the brain.
Burrow, surface, and slam the highest-AC frontliner aside with a push, then vent fire on the backline the moment three are clustered. Use Shifting Sands to pin whoever tries to flee the cone. Kill-priority: melee strikers who can chase it underground; lock them at speed 0 and let the guardian outlast them.
Run it as the anvil beside a bigger threat: it burrows the party into a kill-zone while the flagship boss spends actions. Stack lair hazards (collapsing tombs, fire vents) and let Tomb-Forged punish anyone who finishes it in melee. Do not field it alone at this tier; a full party out-acts a single bruiser.
Put Sha-Kepri 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 Sha-Kepri?
Native CR 6 (Tier 2, levels 5-10): AC 17, 138 HP, +8 to hit, save DC 15. Scale it down to CR 2 for a Tier 1 party (AC 14, 60 HP) or up to roughly CR 11 for Tier 3 (AC 18, 207 HP). The traits and actions stay identical across tiers; only the numbers move.
Can Sha-Kepri be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a bound tomb-warden it makes a natural guardian for a sworn priest, archaeologist, or warlock patron. Use the Khepri-Scarab, Bound (AC 15, 82 HP) as a player-scaled version, or let the full guardian serve as an immovable sentinel the party must reawaken and command with the right binding words.
Is Sha-Kepri a good solo boss?
No. It has no legendary actions and only one reaction, so a four-PC party will out-act it. Field it as an add-on bruiser, a lair guardian, or the anvil beside a flagship spellcaster who needs a frontline. Its strength is durability and area control, not action economy.
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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