The Empress
The Empress — The Encounter
Crowned mother of the green throne, sovereign of growth · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is The Empress
The fourth seal of the Major Arcana shows the Empress crowned and seated, fruit ripening at her feet and a sceptre couched in her palm. She is the mother-card: dominion not of armies but of growth, the patient sovereignty of seasons that need not raise a voice to rule. Diviners read her appearance as abundance, fertility, and the quiet authority of one who creates rather than conquers. Yet a mother defends what she nurtures. The boughs that frame her throne are not ornament but army; the roots beneath her dais wake at her displeasure and drag the unworthy down. Those who mistake her serenity for weakness find the garden itself turned warden — vines at the throat, thorns at the heel, and a green crown that does not blink. To kneel is to be tended. To threaten her brood is to be planted. She rules, as the earth rules, by simply outlasting everything that strikes at her.
Run The Empress in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the throne. The Verdant Throne aura is everything — keep her within 30 feet of it so she regains hit points and rolls saves with advantage. Drag her off it and she folds.
- Open with control. Lead with entangle or plant growth before anyone acts, turning the floor into a grasping swamp, then thorn whip a caster into the roots.
- Spend legendaries on Grasping Roots. Restrain the two PCs closest to closing the gap every round; she wins by keeping melee off her.
- When bloodied, fire Sceptre Sweep to clear adjacent attackers, then fall back onto the throne and heal — she is built to outlast burst damage.
- Three ways to run her: serene defender who only restrains and heals (no kills), wrathful mother who plants the worst offender at 1 HP via Blooming Ward, or lair-boss centerpiece flanked by tree-guardians.
The Empress
Medium fey (noble), neutral good
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEVerdant Throne. While the Empress sits her throne or stands within 30 feet of it, she has advantage on saving throws and regains 10 hit points at the start of each of her turns. The throne and its choking roots count as her lair; difficult terrain spreads in a 30-foot radius around it as grasping vines.
Crown of Seasons. The Empress is a 9th-level spellcaster (spell save DC 15, +7 to hit with spell attacks; Charisma). She has the following spells prepared: cantrips — druidcraft, thorn whip; 1st — entangle, healing word; 2nd — barkskin, moonbeam; 3rd — plant growth, sleet storm.
Actions
Multiattack. The Empress casts one spell, then makes one Sceptre attack.
Sceptre of Sovereignty. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (3d6+4) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be unable to take reactions until the end of its next turn.
Thorn Whip (Cantrip). Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 30 ft., one creature. Hit: 13 (3d6+3) piercing damage, and the Empress pulls the target up to 10 feet toward her into the grasping roots of her throne.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Blooming Ward (Reaction). When a creature the Empress can see within 30 feet is reduced to 0 hit points, she may cause it to instead drop to 1 hit point and sprout binding vines: that creature is restrained until the start of the Empress's next turn (no save). She can use this once per round.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Quickening Word. The Empress casts healing word or druidcraft.
Grasping Roots. A creature within 30 feet of the Empress must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be restrained by surging roots until the end of its next turn.
Sceptre Sweep (Costs 2 Actions). The Empress makes one Sceptre of Sovereignty attack against each creature within 5 feet of her.
She sits enthroned amid a living arbor of curling boughs and flowering pillars, a serene crown upon her brow and a sceptre of office in her ringed hand. Where her gown trails, the bare stone of the diorama erupts into climbing greenery.
The Empress, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINERooted Vigil (signature). While within 15 feet of the creature it guards, the Steward grants that creature a +2 bonus to AC and the creature cannot be knocked prone.
Actions
Bramble Lash. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) slashing damage, and the target's speed is halved until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Interpose Bough. When an ally within 5 feet is hit by an attack, the Steward swaps places with them and takes the damage instead.
A bark-skinned guardian grown from the throne's own roots, it never strays far from the one it was raised to protect.
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 with entangle on the clustered party, then thorn whip the squishiest spellcaster into the roots. Lead with the throne nearby so she keeps regaining hit points; kill-priority is whoever can break the entangle. Pair her with vine-minions to soak the front line.
She is a solo boss here. Open with plant growth to make the room a swamp, then alternate Grasping Roots legendaries on the two biggest threats while moonbeam burns whoever stays still. Use Blooming Ward to deny a kill and re-restrain a downed PC; never leave the 30-ft throne aura. When bloodied, lead with Sceptre Sweep to break a melee cluster, then retreat to the throne to heal.
Run her as the lair's heart with a grove of awakened tree-guardians, not solo. Spend legendaries on Grasping Roots every round so the party never reaches the throne; she heals through any single-target burst. Pair her with a bigger threat or wave-minions — kill-priority for the party is her aura, so make them choose between the roots and the throne.
Put The Empress 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 The Empress?
Natively CR 6 (Tier 2, ~levels 5-10). Because she is a genuine solo boss — two legendary options plus the Blooming Ward reaction — her sheet drops one band so the kit lets her play up. Scale to CR 2 (Tier 1) or CR 11 (Tier 3) using the tier table; traits stay identical, only the numbers move.
Can The Empress be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a neutral-good nature sovereign she makes a strong patron or guardian for a party that protects her grove. Use the companion block — the Verdant Steward, Bound — when you want a controllable bodyguard at the table rather than running the full Empress.
How do I keep her from being a boring damage-sponge?
Force the party to fight the lair, not just her. Her threat is control and healing, so make them choose between reaching the throne (which she defends with Grasping Roots) and surviving the spreading plant growth. The fight should feel like clearing a garden that fights back.
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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