Shavu
Shavu — The Encounter
Pale crossbow-rat of the under-gutters · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Shavu
In the drowned wards beneath the old city, the rat-tribes keep their own marksmen, and none is colder than Shavu the Pale. Folk-tale names him the Grate-Watcher, the white shape that crouches over manhole and storm-drain where the gaslight cannot reach. They say he was whelped albino and cast out by his own warren, and that he learned the crossbow alone in the dark, loosing bolts at the eyes of cats until none came twice. His armor is scavenged plate cut down to a rat's frame, oiled black so no shine betrays him. Mothers in the under-tenements warn children not to peer down the sewer-mouths after dusk, for Shavu sells safe passage through the tunnels to smugglers and assassins, and answers trespass with a poisoned dart from a dark he owns better than any lamp. He takes coin, grudges, and ears.
Run Shavu in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the high ground. Shavu opens from cover at range, not in melee. Place him on a grate, ledge, or rooftop and make the party come to him.
- Open by stripping a reaction. First bolt hits the enemy spellcaster or counterspeller: on a failed DC 14 Con save they lose reactions, so no Shield, no Counterspell, no opportunity attack.
- Kill-priority: anyone who can stick to him. He fears grapplers, teleporters, and web/hold effects. Spend Scurry and bonus-action Disengage every round to keep open ground.
- When bloodied, go full kite. Disengage as a bonus action, Scurry on enemy turns, and trade only at range; let his swarm or allies soak melee while he reloads.
- Three ways to run him: lone harasser peppering the party from the dark; squad leader whose Pack Cunning rewards minions flanking; or paid assassin contracted against one named PC.
Shavu
Medium humanoid (ratfolk), neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEGutter-Born Skirmisher. Shavu can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns. It also ignores difficult terrain made of refuse, rubble, or standing water, and has advantage on saving throws against disease and poison.
Pack Cunning. Shavu has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of Shavu's allies is within 5 feet of that creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.
Actions
Multiattack. Shavu makes two attacks: two with its heavy crossbow, or one with its heavy crossbow and one with its dagger.
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d8 + 4) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be unable to use reactions until the start of Shavu's next turn.
Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d4 + 4) piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) poison damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Scurry (Reaction). When a creature Shavu can see ends its turn within 10 feet of it, Shavu can move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks from that creature.
A lean, ash-white ratfolk in articulated black plate crouches on a sewer grate, heavy crossbow leveled, his long naked tail coiled for balance above the green-streaked stone.
Shavu, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESwarm Sense (signature). Shavu, a tide of loyal sewer-rats given one mind, can sense the position of any creature within 30 feet that isn't behind total cover, even through darkness or invisibility.
Actions
Gnawing Tide. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d8 + 2) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or contract filth fever (DM's discretion).
Reactions
Cover the Retreat. When an ally within 10 feet is targeted by an attack, Shavu can pour over the attacker; the attacker has disadvantage on that attack roll.
A boiling carpet of grey rats that moves and strikes as one, bound to Shavu's whistle since the day he fed them his enemies.
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 at long range; the heavy crossbow's reaction-lock keeps a frontliner from shielding the squishy targets. Use Scurry and bonus-action Hide to stay untouchable, and prioritize the party healer or caster. Pair Shavu with rat swarms or melee minions so Pack Cunning lights up his shots.
Open with a crossbow bolt at the squishiest PC to strip their reaction, then bonus-action Disengage onto a grate or ledge. Kill-priority is anyone who can teleport or pin him; he wants the fight at range with allies adjacent to his marks. Pair Shavu with a melee brute or swarm so Pack Cunning and Scurry let him kite all combat.
Run him as a lair-sniper in a flooded tunnel network: every round he picks one target, locks their reaction, then vanishes via Scurry and Hide. He is an assassin add-on, not a centerpiece; pair him with a bigger threat or a warren of minions that body-block while he reloads. Make the party hunt him through difficult terrain he ignores.
Put Shavu 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 Shavu?
Natively CR 6 (Tier 2, ~2,300 XP) as a Medium humanoid skirmisher. Drop him to CR 2 for a level 1-4 party or scale him to CR 11 for level 11-15 using the Tiers table; the traits and actions stay identical, only AC, HP, to-hit, save DC, and damage move.
Can Shavu be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a hired guide or under-city fixer he makes a strong mercenary ally or rogue NPC, and his bound rat-tide Skitter can ride along as a companion creature. Used against the party he is a sniper add-on, best paired with a heavier melee threat or a warren of minions rather than fought solo.
Is Shavu setting-safe and SRD-compatible?
Yes. He is grounded in public-domain ratfolk and under-city folklore, uses only SRD 5.1 statistics, conditions, and creature types, and references no proprietary settings or named cosmology, so he drops cleanly into any sewer, thieves'-warren, or plague-quarter adventure.
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 Shavu 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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