I am Marenia, blade of Michaela. Those are six words that any Elden Ring player has burned into his frontal cortex at this point. It's as if the fight was so obscenely difficult that it spawned an entire genre of marijuana-wearing heroes, like the Sekiro boss who accidentally blended into the Elden Ring. Now, you can fight her in D&D.

The stat block was created by former D&D designer Dan Dillon (thank you, Dice Breaker), who was caught up in a wave of historic layoffs at Hasbro late last year. Prior to that, he had spent four years at D&D making monsters, encounters, and adventures. His background speaks for itself.

"Just something I tweaked a bit for fun," he writes on Twitter, as if he's forgotten the horrors of the waterfowl dance, introducing "a stat block for a 2 phase #dnd fight using the Mythic monster framework."

The Mythic Monster framework was introduced in the 2020 Mythic Odyssey of Theros. Briefly, a mythological monster is a monster that has a second phase when its hit point reaches zero. As anyone who remembers the second form of Malenia/Malenia has probably noticed, it fits perfectly.

The status block itself is very brutal. Malenia is a CR 21 monster. She has five legendary resistances, whereas most D&D monsters have only three.

She has a corrosive aura of area of effect that permanently curses poisoned enemies, damaging them at the start of their turn. And yes, she has Waterfowl Dance, a recharge ability that can be used along with two other terrifying total attacks on her turn.

This version even has that damned grabbing attack, which is triggered when you miss her. It won't pierce you in the same way, but she will knock you into a depression, and if you don't get back up before her turn comes around, the next three attacks will be in your favor. Savage

I did some quick calculations on the napkin, and assuming you get everyone in attack range in the first phase and use everything you can, this version of Melania can do a whopping 257 total damage on average to a party of four on her turn. And that's not even taking into account her corrupt aura and legendary actions. Therefore, if you want to get good and beat her, it is in your best interest not to group up.