Beholder

BEHOLDERS

A beholder is sometimes called a Sphere of Many Eyes, or an Eye Tyrant. Beholders are large aberrations usually found in the Underdark - caves can lead into beholders homes.

These large, orb-shaped beings have ten eyestalks and one central, larger eye, each containing powerful magic. Powerful and intelligent, beholders are among the greatest threats to the world.


Beholders are incredibly intelligent and universally arrogant. Each beholder believes that they are superior to all others, including those of their own species. That they themselves are the superior beholder. Beholders view everyone else as lesser beings, at best to be utilized as minions - or at worse as food.

These bizarre creatures are possessed of alien intelligence, inhuman forms of perception, and the ability to shape reality through force of will—or even by their mere presence. Inside the comfortable confines of its subterranean lair, a beholder is nearly unassailable thanks to the combination of its peerless intellect and the brutal effects of its eye rays.

A beholder sees in all directions. It is always looking for concealed attackers. Even when it sleeps, its smaller eyes remain open, scanning its lair for threats. If a humaniod acted this way, the constant vigilance and lack of truly peaceful rest would lead to a dangerous level of psychosis, but a beholder’s mind accepts this attitude as normal and necessary—it is always alert to the possibility of assassination or betrayal by unknown threats that stand ready to pounce on the beholder the instant it lets its guard down. They also tend to be quite paraniod and often of lawful evil alignment.

The majority of Beholders hate all other creatures, to the point where they isolate themselves in distant areas, even carving entire cave systems out with their disintegration eye.


NOTES * Beholder Stats
* Zombie Beholder Stats


Size = Large
Type = Aberration
Alignment = Lawful evil
Movement = Flying
Vision = Darkvision (360 degrees)
Homeland(s) = Underdark - Ru'Mal and Ru'Than
Language(s) = Beholde; Undercommon; Deep Speech - some understand Common
Favoured climate = Cold
Average length = 8 ft (2.4 m) diameter
Distinctions = Eye rays; Charm Monster; Flight

Legendary Resistences (3 per day)

MAIN EYE

The main large eye projects an anti-magical cone. This is a 150ft anti-magic cone, rendering spells, magic items, and any other magical abilities entirely useless. This includes the Beholders own eye rays.

Eye Rays

The beholder shoots three of the following magical eye rays at random (reroll duplicates), choosing one to three targets it can see within 120 feet of it:
Charm Ray =
The targeted creature must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by the beholder for 1 hour, or until the beholder harms the creature.
Paralyzing Ray =
The targeted creature must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be paralyzed for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Fear Ray =
The targeted creature must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Slowing Ray =
The targeted creature must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the target’s speed is halved for 1 minute. In addition, the creature can’t take reactions, and it can take either an action or a bonus action on its turn, not both. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Enervation Ray =
The targeted creature must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw, taking 36 hit points or 8d8 necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Telekinetic Ray =
If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or the beholder moves it up to 30 feet in any direction. It is restrained by the ray’s telekinetic grip until the start of the beholder’s next turn or until the beholder is incapacitated. If the target is an object weighing 300 pounds or less that isn’t being worn or carried, it is moved up to 30 feet in any direction. The beholder can also exert fine control on objects with this ray, such as manipulating a simple tool or opening a door or a container.
Sleep Ray =
The targeted creature must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or fall asleep and remain unconscious for 1 minute. The target awakens if it takes damage or another creature takes an action to wake it. This ray has no effect on Elves, constructs and Undead.
Petrification Ray =
The targeted creature must make a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature begins to turn to stone and is restrained. It must repeat the saving throw at the end of its next turn. On a success, the effect ends. On a failure, the creature is petrified until freed by the greater restoration spell or other magic.
Disintegration Ray =
If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take 45 hit points or 10d8 force damage. If this damage reduces the creature to 0 hit points, its body becomes a pile of fine gray dust. If the target is a Large or smaller non-magical object or creation of magical force, it is disintegrated without a saving throw. If the target is a Huge or larger object or creation of magical force, this ray disintegrates a 10-foot cube of it.
Death Ray =
The targeted creature must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take 55 hit points or 10d10 necrotic damage. The target dies if the ray reduces it to 0 hit points.

EYES = The beholder's eyes are quite remarkable things. Hard, solid balls that draws in both light through the pupil and magical energy through the iris, which consists of some sort of translucent crystal.
The shape of the iris can be anything the beholder wishes, which grants it's owner both darkvision and exceptional vision in the light - beholders in a brightly lit space have been observed as capable of counting the legs on a minuscule insect at distances of over one hundred and twenty feet. Beholder eyes also have up to twelve lenses, all capable of movement and rotation independent of the others, which iss what granted them control over the aiming of their eye rays.

Legendary Actions

The beholder’s ability to use legendary actions effectively doubles the number of times it can shoot rays in a round. Each legendary action a beholder takes gives it an opportunity to react to a change in circumstances, or to press an assault that it began on its turn.
For instance, it might use its sleep ray as a legendary action against an enemy that has just been awakened. If no such opportunity presents itself, legendary actions are always useful for piling rays on the most dangerous foe.

DREAMS

Beholder's dreams can physically change elements of their part of the world of Esau. They have been know to dream places and creatures for their amusement or to feed on.

Basic Information

Anatomy

BLOOD

Unlike a humanoid heart that pumps blood around the body constantly, beholders have a central 'blood sac' that, in conjunction with a powerfully muscled diaphragm, pushes blood into the beholder's blood vessels, then pulls the blood back into the sac.

Genetics and Reproduction

Beholders can produce others of their own kind, but the process has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with psychology.

When a beholder sleeps, its body goes briefly dormant - but its mind never stops working. The creature is fully aware, even though to an outside observer it might appear oblivious of its surroundings. Sometimes a beholder’s dreams are dominated by images of itself or of other beholders (which might or might not actually exist).
On extremely rare occasions when a beholder dreams of another beholder, the act creates a warp in reality—from which a new, fully formed beholder springs forth unbidden, seemingly having appeared out of thin air in a nearby space. This “offspring” might be a duplicate of the beholder that dreamed it into existence, or it could take the form of a different variety of beholder, such as a death kiss or a gazer (see “Beholder-Kin”). It might also be a truly unique creature, such as could be spawned only from the twisted imagination of a beholder, with a set of magical abilities unlike that of its parent. In most cases, the process yields one of the three principal forms of the beholder: a solitary beholder, a hive, or a death tyrant.

Dietary Needs and Habits

FOOD

Beholders can eat just about anything organic, but they do have preferences. They tend to enjoy eating small mammals and birds alive - the combination sensation of soft flesh, crunchy bone and liquid blood in their mouths was considered a delicacy.
They do enjoy Gnomes; roast beef, lamb and pork; liver and brain pâté; insects; leafy vegetables, leaves, flower petals, and exotic mushrooms.
Their favourite drinks are blood and wine. Visually impressive meals are always preferred, particularly colourful ones (beholders often watch themselves eat with their eyestalks).
They do not typically enjoy citrus fruits, grapes or melons; eyeballs; hard-boiled eggs; shellfish still in the shell; bull testicles; or anything fried in batter.

DIGESTION

Food is liquefied in the beholder's two stomachs and pumped through a intestine-like system up to the lung where these intestines thin out to a hair's breadth and mixes the food with air. The beholder's diaphragm pumps the digested food, combined with air from the lungs around the body through a system of fine arteries to nourish the organs. Waste liquid, devoid of nourishment and oxygen, then is drained back into the mouth to be expelled, or more likely dribbled out steadily

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

There is a Beholder named Oliveretta, who is located in The Knight Woods within the Feywild Expanse of Kutloc.

Civilization and Culture

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

SUBRACES

In spite of their hatred of diversity (or perhaps because of it), beholders come in a variety of forms, some of which are listed below:_

Bloodkiss beholder = An undead beholder that sucks its prey dry of blood with its eye tentacles.
Death tyrant = an undead beholders akin to zombies.
Doomsphere = A beholder that had died and then has risen as a ghost. Their eyestalk rays took on more chilling and necromantic properties.
Elder Orb = These beholders are born with amazing longevity, to near-immortality.
Eye of flame = An unusually docile form of beholder whose members, while still malevolent, are willing to serve beneath more powerful beholders.
Eye of Frost = A cruel beholder who lives in solitude.
Eye of Shadow = Eyes of shadow are beholders that have been warped by too much time spent in the tangled paths leading to the Plane of Void.
Hive Mother = Also known as Ultimate Tyrant, an enormously powerful variant of beholder with the capacity to stun nearby enemies as well as a greater range of eye ray abilities. Hive mothers have the ability to magically dominate other beholders.

Beholderkin

A vast number of beholderkin exist. Not true beholders, these creatures do not share the race's xenophobia, although most are still quite evil and cruel in nature.
Death kiss = This creature's eyestalks are replaced with blood-draining tentacles.
Director = Beholder hive shock troopers.
Eye of the deep = An aquatic subspecies of beholder. Its most notable physical change is its two large clawed arms.
Gauth = A subspecies of beholder from the same plane as spectators which feed on magic and magic objects.[40] Gazer = Also known as eyeball, a tiny beholderkin with four eye stalks.
Gouger = Ruthless carnivores that hunt beholders.
Observer = one of the most socially adept of the beholder family.
Overseer = An overseer resemble a large, fleshy tree with mouths on its trunk and eyes on its branches.
Spectator = A spectator is an extraplanar beholderkin with four eye stalks.

~ FIGURINES I OWN

Geographic Distribution

• Moata Solar System