Xipe Totec
Xipe Totec — The Encounter
Our Lord the Flayed One, who wears the skin of spring · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Xipe Totec
Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca, the Red Smoking Mirror, is better known by the title the people whisper at planting: Xipe Totec, Our Lord the Flayed One. Each spring his priests flayed a captive and wore the skin twenty days until it rotted away, mirroring the seed that splits its husk to grow. So the god himself walks: clad in another's stripped hide, the dead face hanging at his hip, the new green of the year breaking through the old. He is the patron of goldsmiths, of disease and its cure, of war's captives and the maize that follows them into the soil. To meet him is to be measured for the skin you will give. Those he flays do not merely die; they clothe his next renewal, their faces joining the cape of hands and hides that flutters from his shoulders. He gives life only on the far side of the blade, and he takes the old skin first.
Run Xipe Totec in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the renewal in mind: the first time you drop Xipe Totec to 0, he does NOT die — he sheds the skin, jumps to 30 HP, and clears every condition. Plan to kill him twice.
- Open with Aura + Flense: stand him in the middle so the 15-ft. necrotic aura ticks, then Flense the lowest-AC PC to start chewing their hit point maximum down.
- Kill-priority is the party's sustain: his Flense permanently lowers max HP and his aura grinds the cluster, so a slow party loses the attrition war — focus his renewal husk down fast.
- When bloodied: renew via the Vestment, Stride of Spring out of the dogpile, and recharge Song of the Sown Field for the next clustered turn.
- Three ways to run him: spring-renewal duelist who flenses one PC at a time; AoE harvest-god leaning on aura + Song against bunched parties; or a flanking horror who lets Reaping Step and his flaying-priest companion punish every step taken near him.
Xipe Totec
Medium fiend, neutral evil
CR 11 · 7,200 XP · GUIDELINEVestment of Flayed Skin. Xipe Totec wears the flayed skin of a sacrificed victim. While he wears it, when he is first reduced to 0 hit points he instead drops to 1 hit point, sheds the husk, and emerges renewed: he regains 30 hit points and is freed of all conditions affecting him. The skin can be worn anew only after a long rest. This is the signature trait — Xipe Totec is the god of renewal through flaying; spring comes only after the old skin dies.
Magic Resistance. Xipe Totec has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Aura of Decay and Bloom. At the start of each of his turns, each creature within 15 feet of Xipe Totec takes 7 (2d6) necrotic damage unless he chooses to spare it. Plants and seeds within the aura that he wills sprout and flower instantly.
Actions
Multiattack. Xipe Totec makes two attacks with his Sacrificial Macuahuitl, or one Macuahuitl attack and one use of Flense.
Sacrificial Macuahuitl. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) slashing damage plus 9 (2d8) necrotic damage.
Flense. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or have its hit point maximum reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken until it finishes a long rest. A creature reduced to 0 hit point maximum this way dies, and Xipe Totec may don its skin as a Vestment of Flayed Skin.
Song of the Sown Field (Recharge 5-6). Xipe Totec sings the dirge of harvest. Each creature of his choice within 30 feet must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking 36 (8d8) necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. Withered flesh blooms with grave-flowers on each creature that fails.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Reaping Step (Reaction). When a creature Xipe Totec can see ends its movement within 10 feet of him, he can make one Sacrificial Macuahuitl attack against it.
Legendary Actions (3/Round)
Stride of Spring. Xipe Totec moves up to his speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
Cut Free the Skin. Xipe Totec makes one Flense attack.
Dirge (Costs 2 Actions). Each creature within 15 feet of Xipe Totec must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or take 11 (2d10) psychic damage and be frightened of him until the end of its next turn.
A lean god strides forward draped in a victim's flayed skin, dangling severed hands and a slack human face from his fists, sacrificial obsidian raised over a horned crown, his feet planted on the carved sun-stone of the world.
Xipe Totec, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINESkin of the Flayed (signature). While Xipe Totec wears a fresh flayed skin, it has advantage on Charisma (Deception) and Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to pass as the skin's former owner, and resistance to necrotic damage.
Actions
Obsidian Knife. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage plus 4 (1d8) necrotic damage.
Reactions
Harvest the Fallen. When a creature within 5 feet drops to 0 hit points, Xipe Totec can move up to half its speed toward that creature and begin flaying it, gaining 10 temporary hit points.
A masked flaying-priest who runs at the god's heel, knife already wet, hungry for the next skin to peel and wear.
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 the Aura of Decay (drop necrotic to 1d6) to punish anyone who crowds him, then Flense the squishiest PC. If the party clusters, save the harvest-song for the cluster. Kill-priority: the healer, so his Vestment renewal outlasts theirs.
Lead with Reaping Step threat so melee fears closing, then Multiattack the frontline and Flense to grind down a max-HP target. When bloodied, trigger Vestment renewal and reposition with Stride of Spring. Three legendaries let him out-act a mid party; spread your hits or he never stays down.
Open the round with Song of the Sown Field if two or more are bunched, then Multiattack the heaviest hitter and Reaping Step anyone who steps in. Save Dirge to scatter a stacked party with fright. Kill-priority his Vestment of Flayed Skin first — burst him past 0 once, then again before he renews, or he comes back at 30 HP fresh of every condition.
Put Xipe Totec 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 Xipe Totec?
He is built as a CR 11 (7,200 XP) solo boss at his native Tier 3 (levels 11-15). Because he carries a real action-economy kit — three legendary actions plus the Reaping Step reaction and his Vestment 'second life' — he plays up against a four-PC party, so his native sheet sits one band lower than a multi-monster CR 11 would. Tier 1 and Tier 2 stat blocks are provided to drop him into lower-level games.
Can Xipe Totec be a companion or ally?
Not Xipe Totec himself — he is a flaying god and a centerpiece adversary. His bound flaying-priest, Tlacaxipehualiztli, is the allyable companion: AC 14, 117 HP, an obsidian knife, and a Harvest the Fallen reaction that grants temporary hit points when an enemy falls. Use the priest as a sinister patron's gift or as the survivor of a defeated cult.
Is Xipe Totec a devil or a celestial?
Statted as a Medium fiend, neutral evil, drawn straight from Aztec myth as Our Lord the Flayed One — god of renewal, agriculture, disease, and the spring sacrifice of flaying. The fiend type reflects his cruelty and flaying nature, not any proprietary cosmology; he is wholly public-domain mythology.
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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