Beholder

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, the beholder is a fictional monster. It is also known as an "eye tyrant."

Publishing history
The beholder was introduced to the game in its first supplement, Greyhawk (1975), and is depicted on its cover. Second edition supplements to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, especially those of the Spelljammer campaign setting, added further details about these classic creatures' societies and culture.

Licensing
The beholder is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its Open Gaming License.

Physical description
A Beholder is an aberration comprising a floating spheroid body with a large fanged mouth and single eye on the front and many flexible eyestalks on the top; it was once described as "a big eye with a bunch of little eyes that eats adventurers for breakfast".

A beholder's eyes each possess a different magical ability; the main eye projects an anti-magical cone, and the other eyes use different spell-like abilities (disintegrate objects, transmute flesh to stone, cause sleep, slow motion of objects, charm animals, charm humans, cause death, induce fear, levitate objects, and cause serious wounds.). Many variant beholder species exist, such as "observers", "spectators", "eyes of the deep", "elder orbs", "hive mothers", and "death tyrants". In addition, some rare beholders can use their eyes for non-standard spell-like abilities; these mutant beholders are often killed or exiled by their peers. Beholders wishing to cast spells like ordinary wizards relinquish the traditional use of their eyestalks, and put out their central anti-magic eye, making these beholder mages immediate outcasts.

Society
Beholders are extremely xenophobic, to the point of being engaged in a violent intra-species war with others of their kind who differ even slightly in appearance. They will sometimes take members of other, non-beholder races as slaves. Beholder communities in the Underdark often wage war on any and all nearby settlements, finding the most resistance from the drow and illithids.

Beholders worship their insane, controlling goddess known as the Great Mother, though some also, or instead, follow her rebel offspring, Gzemnid, the beholder god of gazes, who is allied with the illithid god Ilsensine.

Aberrant Beholders
Some beholder strains have mutated far from the basic beholder stock. These aberrant beholders (beholder-kin and abominations) are usually the targets of beholder xenophobia, but occasionally work in tandem with "true" beholders (who may view them as a different race altogether.)

Aberrant beholders that have been described include:

Astereater These beholder-like creatures from the Spelljammer campaign setting appear to be orbs of inert stone, but their stony-like eyelid hides their central eye and ridges hide its toothy maw. They are malicious carnivores that readily eat any creature they come across.

Death Kiss: Also known as "bleeders" or "eyes of terror," these beholder-kin have blood-sucking tentacles instead of eyestalks. They hunt by smell and using their central eye, which does not have anti-magic properties but is gifted with infravision. Death Kisses are as paranoid and xenophobic as their relatives.

Eye of the Deep: This beholder-kin operates underwater; it bears two large crablike pincers and its large central eye emits a cone of blinding light. An Eye of the Deep has only two eyestalks, which can be employed together to create illusions.

Eyeball: Tiny, four-stalked wild beholderkin that often serve as familiars for evil spellcasters.

Gauth: This is a beholder-kin that feeds on magic as well as flesh. A gauth has six eyestalks (one of which is used to drain magic from items) and four feeding tendrils. The most obvious feature of a gauth is that its central eye (which affects the viewer's mind) is surrounded by a ridge of flesh and many small eyes used for sight.

Spectator: A beholder-kin used as a guardian; spectators are nowhere near as xenophobic as their cousins, and are generally pleasant unless their duty is disturbed. Spectators are summoned from the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus to guard places or treasures for up to 101 years. Similar to a beholder except that it bears only four eyestalks and can reflect certain spells.

Hive Mother: A notable beholder-kin (especially in the Spelljammer campaign setting,) these are the "Ultimate Tyrants" or simply "Ultimates." Much larger than standard beholders, they are also the highest form of life in beholder society, and not subject to fears of difference of form. The Ultimates have their eyes embedded in their flesh, protected by coverings, to prevent severing. Somehow, Ultimates can spawn many other species of beholder, and thereby form the hub of any colony.

Beholders that are farther removed from the base stock (abominations) include:

Director: Most similar to the standard beholder form, the directors nonetheless have fewer eyestalks and a smaller central eye, and their behavior draws fear and scorn from "true" beholders. Directors breed and ride specialized mounts - crawlers, which resemble a cross between centipedes and spiders, and crushers, a type of monstrous pseudoscorpion.

Examiner: An odd abomination also known as a four-eyes, it is smaller and insectlike, having antennae for eyestalks and four segmented limbs. They are researchers, scholars and clerks employed by other beholder species and are skilled in using and manipulating magical items.

Overseer: Second only to the hive mother, these beings organize other Beholders and seek out knowledge. They resemble fleshy trees, having thirteen limbs and three mouths. They do not levitate as other beholders do, instead crawling on their fleshy "roots."

Lensman: These creatures have a single eye set in the chest of a five-limbed, starfish shaped simian body. They do not fly or have magical abilities.

Undead Beholders
Although beholders can often become the same types of undead as other creatures (such as vampires), a few unique forms of undead are created from beholders.

Death Tyrant: A zombielike beholder that retains some of its eye rays.

Doomsphere: A ghostly beholder who acquires new powers for its eyestalks.

Related Creatures
Gas Spore: Often mistaken for a beholder, this floating fungus explodes violently if struck.

Gibbering Orb: A great, bloated, floating mass of eyes and mouths, perhaps a common ancestor of both the gibbering mouther and the beholderkin.

Lurking Strangler: A floating pair of eyeballs connected by muscle tissue which serves as a pet and companion to beholders.

Beholders in the Forgotten Realms
Beholders are especially prominent in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, where they infiltrate and seek to control many sectors of society&mdash;many beholders are allied to the Zhentarim, some work with the Red Wizards of Thay, and a particularly powerful beholder, known as "The Eye" or "Xanathar" controls Skullport's influential Xanathar's Thieves Guild. Beholders also compete to control the Underdark from where most of them originate, with their base of power in the City of the Eye Tyrants, Ooltul.

Beholders in Spelljammer
Beholders in the Spelljammer campaign setting are said to be deadlier than the neogi and more sadistic than the illithids. However one thing prevents them from being the most dangerous faction in wildspace. The beholders are engaged in a xenophobic war of genetic purity.

There are a large number of variations in the beholder race with some subraces having smooth hides and others chiton plates. Other noticeable differences include snakelike eyestalks vs crustaceanlike eyestalk joints. Some variations seem minor such as variations in the size of the central eye or differences in skin colour. Each beholder nation believes itself to be the true beholder race and sees other beholders as ugly copies that must be destroyed.

Lone beholders in wildspace are often refugees who have survived an attack that exterminated the rest of their nest or are outcasts who were expelled for having some form of mutation. The most famous lone beholder is Large Luigi, who works as a barkeeper on the Rock of Bral.

Beholders use a large number of different ship designs. Some of these ships feature a piercing ram but others have no weaponry. All beholder ships allow a circuit of beholders to focus their eye stalks into a 400 yard beam of magical energy. These ships are powered and navigated by the "orbus" (plural "orbii") race of beholders, who are stunted, albino, and very weak in combat.

Beholders in other media



 * A beholder appears in the interactive movie Scourge of Worlds: A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure.
 * Two beholders are seen briefly in the 2000 motion picture Dungeons & Dragons.
 * The Dungeons & Dragons TV cartoon series featured a beholder in the 1983 episode, Eye of the Beholder.
 * Beholders appear in a number of Dungeons & Dragons computer and video games, most notably the Eye of the Beholder series.
 * The movie Big Trouble in Little China has a floating monster that resembles a beholder, though it is not described as such.
 * Beholders are also present in the Might and Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic series but tend to differ a little in form. Generally represented with tentacles for legs and a smaller body than in Dungeons & Dragons.
 * In the Ultima computer role-playing games, there exists a beholder-like monster called a gazer; when slain, it explodes into a cloud of bees (possibly a pun on "bee holder").
 * In the Tibia (computer game) as a magical creature. There are also Elder Beholders and Gazers.
 * The very similar Cacodemon from the Doom series of first-person shooters was inspired by D&D's beholders and by the cyclopean astral dreadnought from the Manual of the Planes.
 * The "digdogger" creature in the original Legend of Zelda game is likely inspired by the beholder.
 * In Dungeon Siege, there are creatures named Furies that closely resemble beholders.
 * A Beholder appears on a special level of the NetHack offshoot Slash'EM. The original NetHack game has "floating eyes", which appear somewhat Beholder-like, but actually gained their inspiration from an entirely different Dungeons & Dragons species.
 * In Age of Wonders, the Azraks can train beholder units. Also, beholders sometimes guard caves, castles, prisons, etc.
 * In Westwood's Nox, Beholders guard an underground temple. They can partially paralyze the hero, making it slow to walk.
 * The Futurama episode How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back features a beholder who "guards" the Central Bureaucracy. It is a Grade 11 bureaucrat.
 * In the anime Bastard!!, Dark Schneider defeats a beholder referred to as a Dogezaimon.
 * The online comic Planescape Survival Guide features a beholder as one of the main characters.
 * The Macintosh computer game series Geneforge includes a creature called the Gazer, which is a beholder. A variant of the Gazer is the Eyebeast.
 * The roguelike game Angband includes a variety of different types of beholder, including the unique beholder "Omarax, the Eye Tyrant".
 * A series of monsters in Final Fantasy Legend 3 for Game Boy had the appearance of Beholders, but were not so described.
 * Beholders appear as enemies in Pazuzu's Tower in the game Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. They are simply a more powerful version of a previous enemy known as a Gather. This Beholder looks like a large eye supported by numerous thin tentacle-like pseudopods; it has the ability self-destruct, attack with a pseudopod, create a blinding flash of light, and reflect magical attacks.
 * The original Japanese Famicom and MSX versions of Final Fantasy had creatures called beholders and eyes that looked like the traditional beholder. However, for the US release and later editions, the sprite was changed and the beholders were renamed.
 * A beholder appears briefly in The Order of the Stick along with a mind flayer as a joking reference to the non-inclusion of "product identity" monsters in the Open Game License materials and SRD.
 * In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, there are NPCs that resemble beholders but all eyes are embedded in the body, not on stalks. Instead of eyestalks, they have tentacles on their inferior surfaces. A boss in the Blood Furnace wing of the Hellfire Citadel instance is one such creature. Players can also obtain a pet that resembles a tiny beholder named "Sleepy Willy." However, it only has one eye, no doubt a play on the phrase "one-eyed Willy."


 * In Teen Girl Squad #11 from Homestarrunner.com, Beholders are mentioned by D & D Greg in an argument with Science Fiction Greg.

Creative origins
Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons monsters, the beholder is an original creation for D&D, as it isn't based on a creature from mythology or other fiction. Rob Kuntz's brother Terry thought up the beholder, and Gary Gygax detailed it for publication.

The beholder was later altered by TSR artist Keith Parkinson, who gave it plate-like armoured scales and anthropod-like eyestalks. Jeff Grubb cites Keith Parkinson's artwork as the inspiration for the beholder-kin created for the Spelljammer campaign setting.