Beholder

Description

Combat: See "Beholder Tactics" by Keith Ammann at The Monsters Know What They're Doing blog.

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Beholders in Planescape: while the eye tyrants are known to live deep underground in the prime material, it's questionable whether their origins were on that plane, or one far stranger. In any case, the creatures are a menace in the outer planes as well, with at least two beholder gods - Gzemnid the Deceiver, and the Great Mother herself - having established their divine realms on the outlands and the abyss respectively.

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Gzemnid's realm is a series of deadly mazes beneath the outlands, intertwining with the brain-melting tunnels of Illisandre, god of the mind flayers. The labyrinths of Gzemnid are full of distortions, illusions, and cunning enchantments, matching the Deceiver's nature. There are no known settlements or safe havens, and anyone encountered there is probably a lying, thieving cultist of Gemmed, or the slave of one of his beholder servants, or both. There is, of course, a large number of devout beholders in the mazes. It might be possible to negotiate with a few of them, but the only thing you can trust in the Deceiver's domain is that everyone's out for themselves.

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The realm of the Great Mother, mad deity of the beholders, is even worse. She presides over the 6th layer of the Abyss, known as the Realm of a Million Eyes. The walls of the innumerable twisting tunnels in her domain are studded with bulbous eyes, all of them an appendage of the Great Mother herself. The tunnels are also largely vertical, making traversal incredibly difficult for anyone without flight. Beholder enforcers patrol up and down them, slaying intruding fiends and any hapless mortals stupid enough to stumble into the realm. The Great Mother's servants and worshippers are typically insane, and cannot be reasoned with.

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Bizarrely, outer-planar beholders occasionally find allies, and even safe haven, within the Harmonium faction in Sigil. Though not often seen floating through the streets, the Harmonium homeworld of Ortho employs the monsters as armored sentries, inquisitors, and spymasters in their largest cities. Naturally, the beholder hardheads act more tolerant and law-abiding than most of their kin, perhaps because they know that if they didn't, the Harmonium would wipe them all out.

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(from Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual - 2014)

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Aggressive, hateful, and greedy, these aberrations dismiss all other creatures as lesser beings, toying with them or destroying them as they choose.

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Xenophobic Isolationists. Enemies abound, or so every beholder believes. Beholders are convinced that other creatures resent them for their brilliance and magical power, even as they dismiss those lesser creatures as crude and disgusting. Beholders always suspect others of plotting against them, even when no other creatures are around.

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When a beholder sleeps, it closes its central eye but leaves its smaller eyes open and alert.

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The disdain a beholder has for other creatures extends to other beholders. Each beholder believes its form to be an ideal, and that any deviation from that form is a flaw in the racial purity of its kind. Beholders vary greatly in their physical forms, making conflict between them inevitable. Some beholders are protected by overlapping chitinous plates. Some have smooth hides. Some have eyestalks that writhe like tentacles, while others’ stalks bear crustacean-like joints. Even slight differences of coloration in hide can turn two beholders into lifelong enemies.

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Eye Tyrant. Some beholders manage to channel their xenophobic tendencies into a terrible despotism. Rather than live in isolation, the aptly named eye tyrants enslave those other creatures, founding and controlling vast empires. An eye tyrant sometimes carves out a domain within or under a major city, commanding networks of agents that operate on their master’s behalf.

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Alien Lairs. Because they refuse to share territory with others, most beholders withdraw to frigid hills, abandoned ruins, and deep caverns to scheme. A beholder’s lair is carved out by its disintegration eye ray, emphasizing vertical passages connecting chambers stacked on top of each other. Such an environment allows a beholder to move freely, even as it prevents intruders from easily creeping about. When intruders do break in, the height of its open ceilings allows a beholder to float up and harry foes on the floor.

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As alien as their creator, the rooms in a beholder’s lair reflect the creature’s arrogance. It festoons its chambers with trophies from the battles it has won, including petrified adventurers standing frozen in their horrified final moments, pieces of other beholders, and magic items wrested from powerful foes. A beholder judges its own worth by its acquisitions, and it never willingly parts with its treasures.

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A beholder’s central lair is typically a large, spacious cavern with high ceilings, where it can attack without fear of closing to melee range. A beholder encountered in its lair has a challenge rating of 14 (11,500 XP).

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When fighting inside its lair, a beholder can invoke the ambient magic to take lair actions. On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the beholder can take one lair action to cause one of the following effects:

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• A 50-foot square area of ground within 120 feet of the beholder becomes slimy; that area is difficult terrain until initiative count 20 on the next round.

• Walls within 120 feet of the beholder sprout grasping appendages until initiative count 20 on the round after next. Each creature of the beholder’s choice that starts its turn within 10 feet of such a wall must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be grappled. Escaping requires a successful DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.​

• An eye opens on a solid surface within 60 feet of the beholder. One random eye ray of the beholder shoots from that eye at a target of the beholder’s choice that it can see. The eye then closes and disappears.​

The beholder can’t repeat an effect until they have all been used, and it can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row.

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Regional Effects. A region containing a beholder’s lair is warped by the creature’s unnatural presence, which creates one or more of the following effects:

• Creatures within 1 mile of the beholder’s lair sometimes feel as if they’re being watched when they aren’t.

• When the beholder sleeps, minor warps in reality occur within 1 mile of its lair and then vanish 24 hours later. Marks on cave walls might change subtly, an eerie trinket might appear where none existed before, harmless slime might coat a statue, and so on. These effects apply only to natural surfaces and to nonmagical objects that aren’t on anyone’s person.

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If the beholder dies, these effects fade over the course of 1d10 days.