Oct 12

Beholders



Beholders are rarely encountered, and few surface dwellers have ever seen one, for they are known to exist in only two places: the ocean, and the Astral Plane. Most surface dwellers assume them to be a mythical creature, something made up to scare misbehaving children. But the truth is that they are very real.

Most people assume that beholders got their namesake from the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," made popular by the ground-breaking elvish novel "Orc'temm," usually translated in Common as "My Lover the Orc." Written in the fifth century by an anonymous elf author under the pen name C'Nova, the book depicts a romance between an elf man and an orc woman. The book was banned in Se'Tu'Faan; though in recent decades the book can bought there it is still illegal for anyone to own it. The indentity of the author has been a subject of debate for over two thousand years.

Beholders actually got their name from the sea elves, who call them b'huldiir which literally means "eye tyrant." Though mostly immune to their magical charms, sea elves and beholders wage a three-pronged battle with the sahuagin for control of the seas. The beholders hold their own in this battle despite a lack of arms and legs by using their magic to control armies of slaves, some magically dominated, others controlled through fear. These slaves, made up of sahuagin, nixies, mermen, and other undersea races, build cities which the beholders rule. Though usually found near the ocean bottom, beholders will sometimes rise to the surface to attack ships, taking slaves which are given the ability to breathe underwater by enslaved nixies. Many Astigani ships have been lost in this manner, making beholders and Astigani sworn enemies. The Astigani learned much about this sworn enemy from their allies the sea elves, and the elvish word b'huldiir evolved into the Dbliisch word biholdur, which was eventually misheard by a landlubber; hence the name "beholder" was born.

Beholders are well adapted to life under the sea. Their spherical shape allows them to survive the intense pressure of the ocean's depths, and their self-levitation ability allows their streamlined bodies to move quickly in the water. Autopsies of slain beholders show a simple internal structure, with no lungs, proof that beholders do not need to breathe. There is a stomach, however; beholders are omnivores. Usually they get their slaves to prepare food for them, but when necessary they will use their magical powers, often charming an animal to allow them to get close enough to eat it. Like most creatures who eat, beholders excrete waste products - the "weak spot" in the center of a beholder's underside is actually its rectum. Beholders cannot eat stone, even the stone they produce by their magic eyestalk.

Beholders are extremely intelligent, and form complex societies. Though they cannot eat stone, they often petrify objects for use by their slaves as building materials. These beholder-made rocks are used to construct elaborate cities populated by the beholders and their slaves. There are many such cities dotting the bottom of the ocean, vying with the other undersea races for territory. Accounts from escaped (or liberated) slaves have revealed that different cities employ different forms of goverment - some are dictatorships, some have senates or similar law-making bodies, and others employ more rare or complex types of rule. Though rumors persist of a great beholder emperor which rules them all, the beholders' own personalities makes it doubtful such a supreme ruler exists.

Beholders are quite different in personality from the intelligent humanoids they compete with. Being asexual (beholders are known to reproduce by "budding," splitting off a small clone of themselves which grows to full size in less than a year), they are not driven by lust. Nor are they driven by greed - every known beholder society eschews the concept of money (perhaps because beholders don't need to trade services to get what they want - they have slaves to do their bidding). They are not driven by religous fervor - beholders worship no deities, and always kill or eat priests instead of enslaving them. Indeed, beholders consider themselves superior to the humanoid races because they lack such base drives and motives.

Beholders seem mainly to be driven by power and its accumulation. In most beholder societies those who have more slaves are treated with more respect. If there is a currency to beholders, then it is slaves. (Indeed, some Astigani claim that Lovoss trades slaves to beholders in return for gold and treasure found in seawrecks.) This drive for power along with their great intelligence (which often leads to great hubris) often leads to power struggles among their own kind. The few beholders found on the surface of The Known Lands are usually those who have lost such struggles or political games, and have been banished from their homelands. They often live underground, beneath cities or in wilderness caves. because it reminds them of the darks depths of the sea and also because they know that with their appearance they cannot live out in the open. They often try to continue as they lived before, gathering slaves and trying to set up a small empire they can control. It is rumored that some organizations, such as the Shadowknives, have employed outcast beholders, but it is hard to believe that beholders would stoop to working for hire.

Though the beholders of the sea have been known to exist (at least to the sea elves and Astigani) almost since the Third Age's inception, the beholders of the Astral Plane have only been known to exist for the past few centuries, at least in The Known Lands. They are enemies of the githyanki, the only other known intelligent race to live in the Astral. Astral beholders are physically no different than their undersea counterparts; most people cannot distinguish one from the other, though beholders themselves can tell the difference. Beholders are as suited to the Astral Plane as they are to the sea; their great intelligence allows them to move with little effort and much speed. Astral beholders rarely come to The Known Lands since they lack the magic to do so; they could get their githyanki slaves to teleport them (and they often use them for transport to Inner or Outer Planes), but in general they have no interest in The Known Lands. Usually Astral beholders found in The Known Lands have been summoned by a mage - a foolish mage, since beholders can easily dispel any magical attempts to bind them with their central eye.

Astral and undersea beholders are rumored to be in contact with each other, through mage and/or githyanki slaves. It is not known to what extent they cooperate, if at all. Undersea beholders claim that Astral beholders are simply undersea beholders who migrated to the Astral Plane long ago; Astral beholders claim the opposite. Humanoid sages are equally divided on the issue.

Beholders are highly magical creatures. Some sages theorize that their central eye does not just dispel magic (or generate an anti-magic field), but actually absorbs it, using this absorbed magic as fuel. Ironically, beholders are unable to practice other magical arts. Since they lack hands, beholders are practically incapable of wizardry or witchery. While analytically intelligent, they lack the charisma needed to wield sorcery. Likewise, no beholder shamans have ever been encountered (possibly because spirits want nothing to do with them). Though extremely rare, beholder body parts are prized by wizards for their use in the creation of magical items.

One magical talent that beholders lack is telepathy. Beholders must speak to communicate with their slaves. They have their own language, and most have a talent for quickl learning other spoken languages. As expected of a race with no hands, beholders have no written language. According to ccounts from sea elves and Astigani who have raided undersea beholder cities, no written historical records (in any language) have been found. (Sea elves have a written language composed of dots -they often keep written recordsby punching these dots in large, flat leaves of seaweed.) Either they do not care about history, or have excellent memories and keep an oral history (most sages assume the latter).

It is rumored that some outcast beholders congregate near Casnilax's Hole, where they have created a city - complete with charmed slaves - on a formerly deserted island. This rumor lends some credence to the theory that beholders feed on magic as well as organic matter; the hypothesis is that they live near the hole to feast on the potent chaos magic which emanates from it. The rumor has been difficult to confirm, since it is not easy to travel to Casnilax's Hole and return (sane, at least), but it has persisted enough that beholders have gained the nickname "Casnilax's Eyes."

Much about beholders remains a mystery. For example, it is conjectured that their lifespan is around two hundred years, but this is unconfirmed. It is also unknown how often beholders reproduce; considering their relatively small population, it is assumed that every beholder splits only a few times in a lifetime.

Beholder Variants
All beholders have exactly the same powers. But some people have claimed to have encountered variants, with fewer or more eyestalks or nonstandard powers. Most scholars assume these creatures were either injured beholders (who may have lost some eyestalks) or other creatures entirely.

Death Tyrants
Though extremely rare, beholders have been known to return as undead. Known as death tyrants in Common, these creatures have all of their standard powers (for whatever eyestalks remain) as well as the immunities and resistances of undead creatures. Some are mindless zombies (often raised and controlled by powerful necromancers), but the majority of them are intelligent and free-willed. Death tyrants are despised even by living beholders, who consider them vile mockeries of their "perfect" race.

(( OOC Note: while the beholder's powers are the same as those in standard D&D, their ecology is quite different, as written above. For example, while in other campaign settings it is common for beholders to live deep underground, it is unknown if beholders lair in the largely unexplored Underdark of TKL. ))

 

 



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