Zethra
Zethra — The Encounter
Jade-skinned raider-huntress of the war-band's vanguard · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Zethra
Zethra hails from a roving war-band of green-skinned raiders, a people the lowland villages name only in curses. From childhood she was set apart for the bow, taught to read a fleeing track in trampled grass and to choose, from a panicked crowd, the single throat that matters. The horn bow she carries was strung by her own hands from the antler of a stag she ran to exhaustion across three days of moor. Her war-band strikes at dusk and is gone by the second bell; Zethra goes first and leaves last, marking the captain or the caller for the spears behind her, then melting into the brush before the survivors can name the arrow's owner. Folk who have crossed her speak of a hunter who never wastes a shaft and never misses the one that counts, a quarry-eye that no shield-wall has yet outlasted. She kills for the band, for the spoils, and for the cold pleasure of the chosen mark.
Run Zethra in Sixty Seconds
- Hold her at range. Zethra wants 30+ ft. of open ground and line of sight. If she is jammed into melee she loses Snap Shot value and most of her threat.
- Open by marking. Vanguard's Quarry tags the nearest visible target for +2d6; have her stand so the nearest creature is the PC you most want dead, usually the healer or caster.
- Kill-priority is the back line. She ignores the tanks and shoots the soft targets, knocking Large-or-smaller foes prone to ruin their movement.
- When bloodied, she runs. Use Skirmish Dash to Disengage to fresh cover rather than trading blows. A cornered Zethra is a dead Zethra.
- Three ways to run her: lone ambusher who softens the party before a fight, a paired skirmisher beside a melee bruiser, or one shooter in a full raiding war-band.
Zethra
Medium humanoid, lawful evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEVanguard's Quarry. Signature. At the start of each of her turns, Zethra marks the one creature nearest to her that she can see as her quarry until the start of her next turn. Her weapon attacks against her quarry deal an extra 7 (2d6) damage, and she has advantage on Perception and Survival checks to track it.
Nimble Skirmisher. Zethra does not provoke opportunity attacks when she moves out of an enemy's reach. Difficult terrain caused by undergrowth or rubble costs her no extra movement.
Actions
Multiattack. Zethra makes two attacks with her horn bow, or two attacks with her bone knife.
Horn Bow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (1d8+5 plus 1d6) piercing damage, and if the target is Large or smaller it must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Bone Knife. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d4+5 plus 1d4) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Skirmish Dash (Bonus Action). Zethra takes the Dash or Disengage action.
Snap Shot (Reaction). When a creature she can see moves to within 30 feet of her, Zethra can make one Horn Bow attack against it.
A lithe, jade-skinned huntress crouched mid-draw, a single black arrow nocked to a sweeping horn bow, leather wraps and a sash crossing her painted brow. She is the eye of a raiding war-band, the one who picks the kill before the charge.
Zethra, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Sense (signature). Zethra has advantage on Perception checks that rely on smell and cannot be surprised while it has at least 1 hit point.
Actions
Hamstring Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6+3) piercing damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 ft. until the end of its next turn.
Reactions
Run It Down. When a creature within 10 feet of Zethra tries to move away, it can make a Hamstring Bite against that creature.
A lean hunting beast that runs at Zethra's heel, trained to lock the legs of whatever she marks so the war-band can close.
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 cover with the horn bow on the squishiest target and use Skirmish Dash to stay 30+ ft. away. Kill-priority is the party healer or caster; she peels and kites. Pair her with melee minions to pin the front line while she shoots the back.
Open by marking the most exposed back-line PC with Vanguard's Quarry, then two bow shots plus Snap Shot punishment on anyone who closes. Kill-priority is the healer or the lowest-AC caster. When bloodied she Disengages to fresh cover; she is an add-on skirmisher, so run her alongside a melee bruiser or a captain who holds the line while she reaps.
Treat her as the ranged threat in a larger war-band: she marks and shells the back line while the bigger threat anchors melee. Snap Shot makes approaching her costly, so she forces the party to split. Pair her with a flagship boss or a lair full of cover and minions; do not field her alone against a high-tier party.
Put Zethra 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 Zethra?
Her home build is CR 6 (2,300 XP), tuned for a party of levels 5-10. The stat record also gives scaled CR 2-ish and CR 11-ish columns so you can drop her into tier 1 or tier 3 encounters without rebuilding her.
Can Zethra be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a friendly NPC she makes an excellent ranged scout and tracker, picking off pursuers and marking quarry for the party. Run her as an ally with the same kit, or recruit her hunting beast Whisper-Track as a separate companion.
Is Zethra a solo boss?
No. She is a skirmisher add-on with no legendary actions, so a four-PC party will out-act her. Field her as the ranged element of a war-band or alongside a melee anchor or flagship boss, not as a one-creature encounter.
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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