Bubbles
Bubbles — The Encounter
the Drowning Wyrm, coil-serpent of the salt deep · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Bubbles
Sailors of the drowned coast speak of Bubbles in hushed, half-laughing terror, the gallows-name a charm against the thing it describes. The serpent is old, older than the harbor towns it feeds upon, and it rises only when the tide runs black and the gulls go silent. Witnesses describe a finned mane the color of storm-light, a body ringed in spines, and eyes that hold no malice, only appetite. It does not hoard, does not bargain, does not hate. It coils, it crushes, and it carries its catch down into the lightless cold where no rescue follows. Fisher-wives still leave a salted offering on the breakwater at the turn of each moon, not in worship but in bribery, hoping the wyrm will take the fish and leave the boats. Those who have seen it surface twice never speak of it again, and the harbor records list them simply as taken by the deep.
Run Bubbles in Sixty Seconds
- Hold for water. Bubbles is a drowning machine, not a brawler. Open from the surf, grapple the lowest-AC target, and start dragging toward deep water immediately.
- Kill-priority: free the grappled. The party's whole job round one is breaking the Constrict (escape DC 15) before the serpent submerges and the suffocation clock starts.
- When bloodied, it stops posturing and dives, hauling its catch under; players who haven't freed the grapple by now are in real trouble.
- Three ways to run it: (1) lone ambush predator off a dock or hull; (2) battleline brute beside a bigger boss who hides behind the coil; (3) a flooding-lair set-piece where retreating to land is the only safety.
- Remember Thrashing Surge: every time a melee PC hits it, threaten a DC 14 Strength save or prone, so closing the gap to the coil actually costs something.
Bubbles
Huge monstrosity, neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEAmphibious. The serpent can breathe air and water.
Crushing Coils. Signature. While the serpent has a creature grappled, the grappled target has disadvantage on Strength checks and Strength saves, and the serpent can drag the target with it when it moves (no extra cost to its speed). If the serpent submerges while a target is grappled, that target begins to suffocate.
Actions
Multiattack. The serpent makes one Bite attack and one Constrict attack.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) piercing damage.
Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one Large or smaller target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained and the serpent can't constrict another target.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Thrashing Surge. Reaction. When a creature the serpent can see hits it with a melee attack, the serpent lashes its tail at that creature: the attacker must succeed on a DC 14 Strength save or be knocked prone.
A column of glistening violet scale erupts from the surf, its finned mane flaring and its fanged jaws gaping wide. Bubbles is no pet, despite the name terrified fishers gave it; it is a coil of cold muscle that drowns whatever it cannot swallow.
Bubbles, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINETidal Bond (signature). While within 30 feet of its bonded ally and in or adjacent to water, Bubbles and that ally each have advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) piercing damage.
Reactions
Sheltering Coil. When its bonded ally within 5 feet is hit by an attack, Bubbles interposes its bulk; the ally gains a +2 bonus to AC against that attack.
Tamed from an egg dredged in a fisher's net, this lesser coil-wyrm shadows its keeper through every harbor, gentle on land and lethal in the surf.
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, Bite then Constrict the nearest squishy caster and drag them toward the deep. Free the grappled ally is your party's first job; once it's grappling someone it can't grab a second target. Pair it with a lurking ambusher to punish the rescuers.
Open by surging from the surf and grappling the lowest-AC PC, then move toward water to start the suffocation clock with Crushing Coils. Kill-priority is freeing the grappled target before it submerges. Use Thrashing Surge to prone melee attackers; pair Bubbles with a bigger threat or a flooding lair so the party can't all converge on the coil.
Lead with the grapple-and-drag, retreating into deep water between rounds so the party must fight on its terms. Best as a battleline brute beside a spellcasting master of the deep or amid a nest of smaller serpents. Make the rescue a real cost; prone the would-be saviors with Thrashing Surge and submerge.
Put Bubbles 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 Bubbles?
Bubbles is built as a CR 6 (2,300 XP) Huge monstrosity at its native tier, tuned for a 5th-to-10th-level party. The Tier 1 and Tier 3 columns rescale the same traits up or down for levels 1-4 (~CR 2) and 11-15 (~CR 11).
Can Bubbles be a companion or ally?
Yes. The companion block 'Bubbles, Bound' is a tamed lesser coil-wyrm at roughly 60% of the adversary's hit points, with a Tidal Bond aura, a Bite, and a Sheltering Coil reaction to shield its keeper, ideal for a coastal druid, ranger, or sea-touched PC.
How do I keep a grapple-and-drown monster from feeling unfair?
Telegraph it. Let players see the suffocation threat coming, keep the escape DC reachable (15 at native tier), and remember the serpent can only Constrict one target at a time, so the rest of the party always has a clear window to act and rescue.
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
Played Bubbles at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
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