Xalaxus the Bloodfiend
Xalaxus the Bloodfiend — The Encounter
Blood-Glutted Devourer Wreathed in Carnage and Bone · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Xalaxus the Bloodfiend
The grimoires that name Xalaxus do so in red ink, for no other will hold the words. Born, they say, of a battlefield that drank too much blood, it is a glutton-spirit of slaughter, a demon that wears its victims' gore as armor and their skulls as jewelry. Where it walks, wounds refuse to close and the air turns to copper. Hunters report that Xalaxus does not stalk the strong but the wounded, surging across broken ground to fall upon whoever bleeds first, growing fatter and faster with every kill. The molten clefts it nests in are not fire but congealed blood kept hot by its hunger. It cannot be reasoned with, bribed, or frightened; it knows only appetite. Folk wisdom holds one defense: shed no blood near it, for the scent alone summons it from leagues away, and once it has tasted, it does not stop until the source runs dry.
Run Xalaxus the Bloodfiend in Sixty Seconds
- Hold until someone bleeds. Xalaxus is a wounded-prey hunter: open on whoever has taken the first hit, not the closest target.
- Kill-priority is the lowest-HP creature it can reach — claws have advantage on anything not at full HP (Blood Frenzy), so finish what's already hurt.
- Snowball with Gore Surge: every kill or crit hands it 10 temp HP and +10 speed, so a single drop makes it faster and tankier — pace the fight so it doesn't get a free first kill.
- Three ways to run it: (1) lone brute that chases the bloodied PC across the lava crag; (2) enforcer beside a caster boss who supplies the wounds; (3) anchor of a fiend pack, using Carnage Lunge to leapfrog between hurt foes.
- Punish melee crowding with Spite Spray — anyone hitting it from 10 ft. risks 2d6 acid, so reward players who keep ranged distance.
Xalaxus the Bloodfiend
Large fiend (demon), chaotic evil
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEBlood Frenzy. Xalaxus has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that does not have all its hit points.
Gore Surge. Signature. Whenever Xalaxus reduces a creature to 0 hit points or scores a critical hit with a melee attack, it gorges on spilled blood and gains 10 temporary hit points and its speed increases by 10 feet until the end of its next turn. While it has these temporary hit points, the smell of fresh blood maddens it.
Actions
Multiattack. Xalaxus makes two Rending Claw attacks and one Skull-Crush Bite attack.
Rending Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+5) slashing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or take 4 (1d8) necrotic damage at the start of its next turn as the wound weeps and will not close.
Skull-Crush Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+5) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Carnage Lunge (Bonus Action). Xalaxus moves up to half its speed toward a bloodied creature it can see. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks.
Spite Spray (Reaction). When Xalaxus takes damage from a creature within 10 feet, it lashes out, spraying scalding blood; that creature must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw or take 7 (2d6) acid damage.
A Large, gore-slick brute of corded crimson muscle and jutting bone, Xalaxus crouches on a lava-veined crag, sweeping horns curling overhead and tiny skull-trophies fused to its hide. Its own face has rotted away to a grinning skull beneath a crown of carnage.
Xalaxus the Bloodfiend, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEScent of Slaughter (signature). Xalaxus the Bloodfiend knows the direction of the nearest bleeding creature within 120 feet. While within 10 feet of Xalaxus the Bloodfiend, allies have advantage on attack rolls against any creature missing half or more of its hit points.
Actions
Cleaving Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage.
Reactions
Blood Ward. When an ally within 5 feet is reduced below half its hit points, Xalaxus the Bloodfiend interposes its hardened hide; the triggering damage is reduced by 5 and Xalaxus the Bloodfiend moves between the attacker and the ally.
A lesser get of Xalaxus's spilled blood, Xalaxus the Bloodfiend is a wiry, half-sized echo of the brute, bound to a master who keeps it leashed by feeding it the dying. It points the way to fresh wounds and guards the one who bleeds for it.
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 at whoever takes the first hit, then never leave that target. If the party clusters, bite the front-liner and claw whoever is wounded; kill-priority is anyone already bloodied. Pair it with a bigger threat or a pack of lesser fiends so the party cannot simply gang up.
Open against a bloodied PC if any exists, otherwise claw-claw-bite the squishiest reachable target to draw first blood and trigger Gore Surge. Once surging, use Carnage Lunge to chain to the next wounded foe; kill-priority is always the lowest-HP creature it can reach. Best run alongside a lair of blood pools or a commanding boss who herds the party into its reach.
As an enforcer in a larger fight: hold until a PC drops below half, then Carnage Lunge in and full-attack to finish them, snowballing temp HP. Let minions or a spellcaster boss apply the wounds it feeds on, then mop up the bleeding. Do not run it solo at this tier; pair it with a flagship caster or a horde so the action economy stays in the enemy's favor.
Put Xalaxus the Bloodfiend 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 Xalaxus the Bloodfiend?
Natively CR 6 (a Tier 2 boss-brute, roughly a deadly fight for four characters of levels 5-7). The card also gives Tier 1 (CR ~2) and Tier 3 (CR ~11) versions of the same kit — identical traits and actions, only the numbers move.
Can Xalaxus be a companion or ally?
Xalaxus itself is a mindless blood-glutton and makes a poor ally, but its lesser get, Skarn, Bloodbound, works as a companion: it scents the nearest bleeding creature, grants allies advantage against half-health foes, and can interpose its hide to ward a wounded friend.
Is Xalaxus undead or a demon?
It is filed in the Undead & Necromancy line, but it reads and stats as a Large fiend (demon) — a public-domain blood-spirit of slaughter, not a creature of any proprietary cosmology. Run it as a fiend; if you want a true undead, simply swap the type to undead and add immunity to poison and exhaustion.
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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