Engkato Fire
Engkato Fire — The Encounter
Horned ember-spirit of the burning groves, fire bound to its staff · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Engkato Fire
Among the diwata and engkanto that haunt the old groves of the islands, the fire-bound are the most jealous. Where lightning split a balete tree or a careless traveler left coals to smolder, an engkanto drank the burning and never let it go. It wears a face like a snarling beast and horns like a forest goat, and it keeps its hoarded blaze inside a staff cut from the very tree it claimed. To trespass on its grove, to fell its trees or foul its spring, is to be marked: the spirit follows by the smell of smoke, and what it touches blackens. Offerings of cooked rice and tobacco may turn its temper, and the polite ask leave before passing through. Those who mock the unseen folk wake to find their roofs alight and the red shape laughing at the treeline, its flame the only light.
Run Engkato Fire in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the aura Engkato wants melee to hurt. Stand still in its space and PCs bleed 1d10 fire just for starting their turn next to it, and Cinder Ward burns anyone who swings.
- Open with Ember Lance First round, target the PC with a wooden shield, longbow, or cloth robe so they roll the DC 14 catch-fire save and keep taking ongoing damage.
- Kill-priority is your own back line It fixates on casters and healers with ranged fire; protect them or it whittles them down from 60 feet away.
- When bloodied It stops trading blows and kites at range, using Multiattack as cast-plus-staff only when cornered, leaning on Ember Aura to make pursuit costly.
- Three ways to run it As a grove guardian (immovable, lair terrain on fire), as a stalker (hit-and-fade by smoke), or as a tormentor paired with a brute who pins the party in the aura.
Engkato Fire
Medium fey, neutral evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEEmber Aura. Signature. A creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of the engkato, or touches it, takes 5 (1d10) fire damage. The engkato sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius.
Fey Step. The engkato ignores difficult terrain and has advantage on saving throws against being grappled or restrained.
Actions
Multiattack. The engkato makes two attacks with its blazing staff, or casts a spell and makes one staff attack.
Blazing Staff. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 7 (2d6) fire damage.
Ember Lance. Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 60 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (4d8) fire damage, and a creature wearing flammable material or wielding a wooden item must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw or catch fire, taking 5 (1d10) fire damage at the start of each of its turns until it or an adjacent creature uses an action to douse the flames.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Cinder Ward. Reaction. When a creature the engkato can see hits it with a melee attack, the engkato wreathes itself in flame and the attacker takes 7 (2d6) fire damage.
A lean, red-skinned grove spirit with a fanged beast-mask face, sweeping horns and bony elbow spurs, gripping a tall wooden staff crowned with a living red flame.
Engkato Fire, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEWarding Coals (signature). While within 30 feet of you, you have resistance to fire damage and add 1d4 to your saving throws against being charmed or frightened.
Actions
Coal Fling. Ranged Spell Attack: +6 to hit, range 40 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (3d6) fire damage.
Reactions
Searing Rebuke. When an ally you can see within 30 feet is hit by a melee attack, the attacker takes 5 (1d10) fire damage.
A grove-spirit who took your offering and now guards your fire, its staff-flame banked low until the moment of need.
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 Ember Lance from cover to set a frontliner alight, then back away behind the Ember Aura so meleeing it costs HP. Kill-priority is squishy casters; pair it with a single beast or brute so the party can't gang the engkato.
Open with Ember Lance to ignite a wooden-shield or robe-wearing PC, then alternate spell-and-staff via Multiattack while Cinder Ward punishes melee. If the party clusters at a chokepoint, fall back so they eat Ember Aura to reach you. Pair it with a bigger grove-boss; it is a tormentor, not the centerpiece.
Run it with minions and lair: lead with Ember Lance to mark a caster, hold the burning grove as terrain, and let Ember Aura and Cinder Ward tax anyone who closes. Kill-priority is enemy healers. Pair it with a larger threat so it plays its true role as a punishing add, not a solo boss.
Put Engkato Fire 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 Engkato Fire?
Native CR 6 (2,300 XP), a Tier 2 threat for parties of levels 5-10. Scaled stat blocks are provided for Tier 1 (levels 1-4) and Tier 3 (levels 11-15) so you can drop it into any table.
Can Engkato Fire be a companion or ally?
Yes. Appease the grove with the proper offering and it binds as Ember-Brand, a fire-warding spirit (AC 13, 76 HP) that grants nearby allies fire resistance, flings burning coals, and rebukes attackers who strike its kin.
Why does fighting it in melee feel like a trap?
That's by design. Ember Aura damages anyone who starts their turn beside it and Cinder Ward burns melee attackers, so a party that swarms it takes steady chip damage. Range it down or force it out of the grove instead.
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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