Walrus Dog
Walrus Dog — The Encounter
Tusked guardian of the ice-floes, Inuit terror of the surf · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Walrus Dog
In the old telling of the ice-bound peoples, the walrus dog is no beast that any mother whelped. It is said to be a drowned hunting-hound made monstrous by the cold mother of the sea, given the tusks of the walrus it once chased and a hide of plates so the spear cannot bite. It haunts the broken floe-edge where seal and seabird gather, and where the unwary kayaker leans too far. Elders warn that it does not hunt for hunger alone but to guard the breathing-holes that belong to the sea's people; to take more than your share of the catch is to wake it. It answers no charm and heeds no song. When the ice groans at night and a low barking carries across the water with no dog to make it, the camp pulls its boats high and burns no fat until dawn. Those it tusks beneath the floe are never given back.
Run Walrus Dog in Sixty Seconds
- What it is A Large Inuit ice-beast brute: armored carapace, walrus tusks, surf charges. Native CR 6, an add-on, not a solo boss.
- Open with Surf Lunge straight through the clustered party to prone them, then Multiattack one target to knock prone + grapple.
- Kill-priority Whatever it grapples — it tusk-anchors so allies can't pull the victim free; only the grappled PC's own check escapes.
- When bloodied It hauls its grappled victim toward open water or the floe-edge to drown them — block the water or break the grapple fast.
- Three ways to run it (1) Lone floe-guardian gating a breathing-hole; (2) tusked bodyguard beside an ice shaman; (3) ambush from the surf when the party crosses thin ice.
Walrus Dog
Large monstrosity, unaligned
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEHold Breath. The walrus dog can hold its breath for 30 minutes and is never hindered by submerged or churning water.
Ice Strider. The walrus dog ignores difficult terrain made of ice, snow, or surf, and has advantage on saving throws against being knocked prone while on such ground. It cannot be tracked across ice by scent or sight.
Tusk Anchor. Signature. When the walrus dog hits a creature with its Tusks, it can plant its tusks and become an immovable bulwark: until the start of its next turn, it cannot be moved or knocked prone by any effect, and a creature grappled by it cannot be freed by allies' Strength checks (only by the grappled creature's own Athletics or Acrobatics check).
Actions
Multiattack. The walrus dog makes one Tusks attack and one Claw attack. If it hits the same target with both, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone and grappled (escape DC 15).
Tusks. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) piercing damage, and the target is pushed up to 10 feet toward water or open ice.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Surf Lunge. Bonus Action (recharge 5-6). The walrus dog moves up to its swim speed in a straight line through water, ice, or surf without provoking opportunity attacks. The first creature it passes through must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 11 (2d10) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone.
A mountain of armored scale and gristle hauling itself from the surf, the walrus dog drags a face of overlapping plates and two curved tusks longer than a man's arm, its clawed forelimbs gouging the ice as it lows.
Walrus Dog, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEFloe-Warden (signature). While Walrus Dog is within 10 feet of you, you and your allies in that radius ignore difficult terrain from ice, snow, and surf and have resistance to cold damage.
Actions
Goring Tusks. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage, and a Medium or smaller target is pushed 5 feet.
Reactions
Bulwark. When an ally you can see within 5 feet is hit by a melee attack, Walrus Dog plants itself; the ally gains a +3 bonus to AC against that attack.
A smaller cousin gentled by an old shaman's bargain, Walrus Dog plods at your heel and breaks the surf so the soft-footed may pass.
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 lunging from the surf to knock the front-liner prone, then tusk-anchor next to the squishiest caster. Pin one target with the grapple and let it gore. Pair it with seal-hunters or ice cultists so the party can't simply kite it across the floe.
Open with Surf Lunge through a clustered party to scatter and prone them, then Multiattack the same target to grapple and anchor. Kill-priority is whoever it has pinned, so keep it adjacent to the healer or wizard. Best run alongside a bigger Arctic threat or a pack of lesser beasts that punish prone, downed PCs.
Pair it with minions or a lair of breaking ice; it is a bruising bodyguard, not a solo boss. Open with Surf Lunge to prone the line, anchor onto the controller, and let allied creatures swarm the prone PCs. When bloodied it drags its grappled victim toward water to drown them, so position to cut off the floe-edge.
Put Walrus Dog 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 Walrus Dog?
Its home statline is CR 6 (Tier 2, ~2,300 XP). Scale it down to ~CR 2 for Tiers 1 or up to ~CR 11 for Tier 3 using the table — traits stay identical, only AC, HP, to-hit, save DC, and damage shift.
Can Walrus Dog be a companion or ally?
Yes — a smaller, shaman-gentled version, Tuugaaq, fights at your side (AC 14, 78 HP). It breaks icy difficult terrain for the party, gores at reach, and plants itself to shield an adjacent ally.
Is the walrus dog actually aquatic?
It is amphibious in practice: swim 50 ft., holds its breath 30 minutes, and is at home in surf and broken ice. On land it is slower (30 ft.) but ignores ice and snow terrain, so fighting it near water plays to its strengths.
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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