Usumgal
Usumgal — The Encounter
The Great Serpent-Dragon Risen From the Primordial Deep · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Usumgal
Before the canals were dug and the marshes tamed, the scribes of the first cities pressed the name Usumgal into wet clay: the Great Serpent-Dragon, a title so vast that god-kings and storm-bulls alike borrowed it to swell their own legends. The oldest tablets place it among the monstrous brood of the salt-sea, a thing of many mouths that swallowed boats whole and silted whole villages into the riverbed. Where it surges, the floodwaters rise out of season and the reeds run red. Fishermen still mark the deep pools where the water turns black and warm, and they do not cast there. To wound Usumgal is to anger every mouth at once, for no single blow can find a heart in a beast that is all hunger and tide. The heroes of the epics did not slay it; they merely outran the flood and counted themselves blessed by the watching gods.
Run Usumgal in Sixty Seconds
- Hold until the party is near water — on land Usumgal is slow (20 ft.) and far less dangerous; bait them to the shore first.
- Open with Engulfing Surge to prone the cluster, then Bite-grapple your kill-priority: the healer or controller, since the free maws keep chewing them every round.
- Kill-priority is whoever is grappled — Drag Under and the restrained condition lock them away from rescue; make the party spend turns freeing them.
- When bloodied (109 HP), it dives and uses Surging Tide to gain advantage, re-surfacing with Engulfing Surge the moment they re-cluster.
- Three ways to run it: a flooded-lair bottleneck monster, a grab-and-drown bruiser that splits the party, or a battlefield-controller add beside a bigger boss — never solo, it has no legendary kit.
Usumgal
Huge monstrosity, chaotic evil
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINEHydra-Maws. Usumgal's body bristles with extra fanged mouths. It can take the Multiattack action even if a condition (other than incapacitated) would normally prevent it, and it has advantage on saving throws to maintain a grapple. While it has a creature grappled, its other maws keep biting freely.
Surging Tide. While in or within 10 feet of a body of water, Usumgal's swim speed increases by 30 feet and it gains advantage on attack rolls against any creature standing in difficult terrain, mud, or water.
Amphibious. Usumgal can breathe air and water.
Actions
Multiattack. Usumgal makes three Bite attacks. It can replace one Bite with a use of Engulfing Surge if available.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) piercing damage, and if the target is a Large or smaller creature it is grappled (escape DC 16). Until this grapple ends the target is restrained and Usumgal can't bite a different target.
Tusk Sweep. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) slashing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or be pushed 10 feet and knocked prone.
Engulfing Surge (Recharge 5–6). Usumgal heaves up a crashing wave in a 30-foot cone. Each creature there makes a DC 16 Dexterity save, taking 32 (5d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage and being knocked prone on a failure, or half damage and not knocked prone on a success. The area becomes difficult terrain until the start of Usumgal's next turn.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Drag Under (Reaction). When a creature Usumgal has grappled tries to move away or is freed, Usumgal can yank it 10 feet toward itself; the creature must then succeed on a DC 16 Strength save or fall prone.
A bulbous, spike-crowned horror erupts from a churning wave, its hide split by ranks of fanged mouths and crowned by curving bone tusks. This is Usumgal, the great serpent-dragon the old tablets named before kings had names.
Usumgal, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEFloodborn (signature). The Usumgal has a swim speed of 40 ft., can breathe water, and ignores difficult terrain created by water or mud. While adjacent to an ally it grants that ally advantage on Strength saves against being pushed or knocked prone.
Actions
Goring Tusk. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) piercing damage, and a Medium or smaller target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Pull to Safety. When an ally within 10 feet falls prone or is grappled, the Usumgal can swim to them and drag them up to 15 feet through water as a reaction.
A lesser spawn of the deep, half-tamed by a marsh-witch's chant, it shadows the great serpent like a remora and obeys whoever holds its binding reed.
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 the water with Engulfing Surge to scatter and prone the party, then Bite to grapple the nearest swimmer and drag them under. Kill-priority is the grappled hero — Drag Under keeps them away from rescue. At this tier keep it as a lair set-piece bottleneck, not a fair fight.
Lead with a Bite-grapple on the squishiest target, then use the free maws to chew them while Tusk Sweep knocks back anyone who closes to free them. Save Engulfing Surge for when 3+ PCs cluster on the shoreline. Pair it with marsh cultists or a caster who summons more water to feed Surging Tide.
Open by flooding the field with Engulfing Surge — prone, difficult terrain, and now every attack against the downed party has advantage from Surging Tide. Grapple the controller or healer and let Hydra-Maws keep biting them with the other mouths; Drag Under defeats their escape. Run it with minions or alongside a bigger flagship threat — it controls the battlefield but lacks the action economy to anchor a fight alone.
Put Usumgal 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 Usumgal?
Usumgal is built at CR 11 (Tier 3, levels 11–15) as its native tier, with scaled Tier 1 and Tier 2 versions provided. The numbers move between tiers but the traits and actions stay identical, so you can drop the same monster into a lower-level game without rewriting it.
Can Usumgal be a companion or ally?
The great serpent itself is far too vast and mindless to befriend, but the bundled Reed-Diver companion is its lesser spawn — a bound water-beast a marsh-witch can leash to the party for grappling support and battlefield rescues.
Is Usumgal a solo boss?
No. It is a powerful add-on threat, not a centerpiece. It has strong control (Engulfing Surge, grapple-lock, Drag Under) but no legendary actions, so a full party out-acts it over a round. Run it with minions, in a flooded lair, or beside a bigger flagship monster.
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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