A gaping maw filled with dagger teeth parted beneath a single eyeball the size of a grapefruit. Roughly a metre across and round as a beach ball, the unearthly creature had a heft and weight to it that belied the way it defied gravity. The beholder hovered above the chair in Dr Cheung’s office behind a complex apparatus designed to test its eyesight. “OH, UH, I MUST SEE THOSE AGAIN TO BE CERTAIN.” WHERE YOUR MOST SECRET TERRORS AND DARKEST DREAMS BECOME A BALEFUL REALITY.” “I HAIL FROM THE FAR REALM, A REGION OF SPACE BEYOND YOUR DIMENSION THAT DEFIES HUMAN COMPREHENSION. She had introduced herself to the beholder as Dr Tracey Cheung. They seemed to have many complex and delicate social mores attached to said categories as well. To the beholder, all human beings were equally disgusting and it didn’t understand why they felt the need to separate one another into a multitude of narrow racial categories. The optometrist was relatively tall for a human woman, with long, dark hair and features of Chinese ancestry. I say that I grew up around here and people say, no, where are you really from? Sorry.” You’d think I know better, I’ve been asked enough times. “I asked where you were from?” The optometrist laughed lightly. A beholder judges its own worth by its acquisitions, and it never willingly parts with its treasures.Ī beholder’s central lair is typically a large, spacious cavern with high ceilings, where it can attack without fear of closing to melee range.“And what about now, one or two? One, or two?” 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. When intruders do break in, the height of its open ceilings allows a beholder to float up and harry foes on the floor.Īs alien as their creator, the rooms in a beholder’s lair reflect the creature’s arrogance. Such an environment allows a beholder to move freely, even as it prevents intruders from easily creeping about. A beholder’s lair is carved out by its disintegration eye ray, emphasizing vertical passages connecting chambers stacked on top of each other. 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.Īlien Lairs. Because they refuse to share territory with others, most beholders withdraw to frigid hills, abandoned ruins, and deep caverns to scheme. Rather than live in isolation, the aptly named eye tyrants enslave those other creatures, founding and controlling vast empires. Even slight differences of coloration in hide can turn two beholders into lifelong enemies.Įye Tyrant. Some beholders manage to channel their xenophobic tendencies into a terrible despotism. Some have eyestalks that writhe like tentacles, while others’ stalks bear crustacean-like joints. Some beholders are protected by overlapping chitinous plates. Beholders vary greatly in their physical forms, making conflict between them inevitable. 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. The disdain a beholder has for other creatures extends to other beholders.
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Beholders always suspect others of plotting against them, even when no other creatures are around. 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. Xenophobic Isolationists. Enemies abound, or so every beholder believes. When a beholder sleeps, it closes its central eye but leaves its smaller eyes open and alert. Aggressive, hateful, and greedy, these aberrations dismiss all other creatures as lesser beings, toying with them or destroying them as they choose.Ī beholder’s spheroid body levitates at all times, and its great bulging eye sits above a wide, toothy maw, while the smaller eyestalks that crown its body twist and turn to keep its foes in sight. One glance at a beholder is enough to assess its foul and otherworldly nature. "Every beholder thinks it is the epitome of beholderkind, and the only thing it fears is that it might be wrong."