Tammuz
Tammuz — The Encounter
The Shepherd Who Dies and Rises, Sun-Crowned Lord of the Green · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Tammuz
Set down in the lamentation-tablets of the Two Rivers, Tammuz is the shepherd-lord wedded to the bright queen of heaven, the green of the world made flesh. Each year he is dragged down into the dust at the scorpion's gate, and the fields wither, the flocks fall barren, and women keen for him at the city walls. Yet the queen descends after him, the bargain is struck, and he climbs again into the light, so the barley greens and the lambs come. Thus he is the god who dies and the god who rises, the proof that no death is final while love still searches the dark. Where he walks the sick mend and the dead lie quiet, but his blessing is also a warning: he gives only what the turning year permits, and what he raises in spring he will surrender again in autumn. To bind his name is to bind the harvest itself.
Run Tammuz in Sixty Seconds
- What he is A celestial healer-priest, not a brawler. His whole job is keeping the other side of the fight alive and undoing the party's best rounds.
- Open with the halo lit and Verdant Touch on the enemy's healer or anyone leaning on hit-point recovery, locking them out of healing for a round.
- Kill-priority for the PARTY: drop Tammuz fast, but expect Dying and Rising God to yo-yo him back once unless you finish him with a crit or radiant damage.
- When bloodied he pulls back, hovers, and leans on Rite of Return and Shepherd's Ward to outlast you while his allies do the killing.
- Three ways to run him 1) the field-medic behind a wall of undead-slayers; 2) the radiant scourge that punishes an undead party every turn with his halo and Rite; 3) the unkillable support glued to a bigger flagship boss.
Tammuz
Medium celestial, neutral good
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEDying and Rising God. When Tammuz is reduced to 0 hit points but not slain by a critical hit or radiant damage, he instead drops to 1 hit point and at the start of his next turn regains 30 hit points as the green returns to him. Once this trait revives him, it cannot do so again until he finishes a long rest.
Halo of the Quickening Sun. Tammuz sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for another 20 feet. An undead or fiend that starts its turn within the bright light takes 7 (2d6) radiant damage. He can suppress or resume this light as a bonus action.
Magic Resistance. Tammuz has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Actions
Multiattack. Tammuz makes two Verdant Touch attacks, or he makes one Verdant Touch attack and casts a spell of 3rd level or lower.
Verdant Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) radiant damage, and the target cannot regain hit points until the start of Tammuz's next turn.
Solar Lash. Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (3d6 + 5) radiant damage. If the target is undead, it must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn.
Rite of Return (Recharge 5-6). Tammuz channels the turning of the seasons in a 30-foot radius centered on himself. Each ally in the area regains 14 (4d6) hit points and is freed of one disease or the blinded, deafened, or poisoned condition. Each hostile undead or fiend in the area must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw, taking 22 (5d8) radiant damage on a failure, or half as much on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Shepherd's Ward (Reaction). When an ally Tammuz can see within 30 feet is hit by an attack, he can grant that ally a +3 bonus to AC against that attack, possibly causing it to miss, as a verdant aura intercepts the blow.
A serene crowned youth hovers on the air, arms flung wide in welcome, a great sunburst halo blazing behind his head and a green-bordered mantle streaming like new leaves. He rises from a scorpion-carved pillar, the very image of the harvest reborn from the underworld dark.
Tammuz, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESister's Lament (signature). Once per turn, when an ally within 20 feet of Tammuz drops to 0 hit points, she can use her reaction to stabilize them and they regain 5 hit points, her mourning becoming a small mercy.
Actions
Thorned Branch. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) radiant damage.
Reactions
Take My Place. When Tammuz would be reduced to 0 hit points while Tammuz is within 30 feet, she can move up to her speed toward him and take half the triggering damage in his stead, echoing the old bargain of substitution.
A grave-eyed woman wreathed in grapevine, Tammuz offers herself for half the year so her brother may rise, and she guards his bearer with the same quiet sacrifice.
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 suppressing his halo and floating to a back rank, healing the most-hurt ally with Rite of Return before it recharges. If the party clusters their undead, hit the bunch with Solar Lash to blind the worst one. Pair him with a swarm of restless dead so his radiant tricks have prey; he is a healer-priest, not a duelist.
Open with the halo lit and Verdant Touch on the enemy's own healer to lock their hit points. Kill-priority is whoever the party relies on to top up; deny it, then Rite of Return to undo their burst. Hold Shepherd's Ward for the big incoming hit, and let Dying and Rising God bait them into wasting a turn finishing him.
Run him as the beating heart of a temple-host: he hovers behind heavier celestials and undead-slayers, healing and warding while they hold the line. Open Rite of Return to scour fiends and undead, then chain-heal the front rank. Pair him with a bigger flagship threat; alone his offense is too soft, but as the support that refuses to let your boss die he becomes a nightmare to grind down.
Put Tammuz 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 Tammuz?
His home build is CR 6 (2,300 XP), a Tier 2 fight for levels 5-10. The record also gives ready-to-run CR 2 (Tier 1) and CR 11 (Tier 3) versions with the same traits and only the numbers shifted, so you can drop him into almost any table.
Can Tammuz be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a neutral good dying-and-rising god he makes a natural patron or quest-giving ally, and his Rite of Return and Shepherd's Ward make him an outstanding support NPC. The bundled companion, Geshtin the Vine-Sister, can be run as her own ally or as the loyal guardian of whoever bears his blessing.
Is Tammuz a solo boss?
No. He is an ADD-ON, not a centerpiece. His offense is deliberately soft and he has no legendary actions, so a four-person party out-acts him alone. Run him as the support behind a larger flagship threat or a host of undead and fiends, where his healing and warding turn a normal fight into a war of attrition.
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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