Deep Dive - Beholder [Early Access]

Due to the length of this Deep Dive, we are still applying the finishing touches to the last few editions. Here are the first few editions of the Beholder, and we hope you check out the rest of it on Thursday! -Stephen

One of the original monsters in Dungeons and Dragons, this creature comes from the minds of the creators of the game, Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax - though the creature was made by Rob’s brother Theron Kuntz, and fleshed out by Gygax before being published. There is no myth or legend that the Beholder is born from and is solely a creation from the minds of these gentlemen, which just makes you wonder how many drugs they were doing. This monster is a floating sphere with a giant eyeball in the center of it, a mouth full of teeth, and little eyestalks on the top of it. That alone would scare off most reasonable people, and then you find out that the eyes can all shoot rays of various magic at you and your friends, all sane people will flee as quickly as possible.

With over 25 variants of the Beholder throughout the editions, the floating eyeball of doom brings with it a long and storied history. From the giant Elder Orb, a massive Beholder skilled in the art of arcane magic, to the Doomsphere, an undead beholder created from the energy of powerful explosions to many other and strange forms. The Beholder has a wealth of information and history behind it, and this is going to be a deep and long dive into their history.

OD&D - Beholder

No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 4/2
Move: 3”
Hit Dice: Special
% in Lair: 90%
No. of Attacks: 1 bite
Damage/Attack: 2-5 plus special

The Beholder makes its debut in the Greyhawk Supplement (1975) where they are also called Eye Tyrants and Spheres of Many Eyes - both monikers are apt titles for the creature. They are 3’ diameter, they have one big ugly eye in the middle of its round body, and ten little stalks with eyes atop it. They float very slowly and are known to be neutral with a bent towards chaos. We are given a single piece of artwork on them and it is the front cover of the supplement and it is pretty badass. It’s of a ferocious fight between a fighter and a beholder and you can really tell that there are action and heroics involved!

Greyhawk Supplement, 1975 TSR Inc.

Well, maybe not so much action as a fat balloon looking stoned out of its mind and a warrior unsure if the monster is just a prank or if he is about to be killed. Luckily, the White Box set of Dungeons & Dragons was reprinted in 2013 by WotC and while every book stayed the same on the inside, each one got new and awesome cover art. Now, it truly is a fearsome battle to the death against the Eye Tyrant! 

Greyhawk Supplement - Premium, 2013 WotC

Going back to the mechanics of the Beholder, it has three components that make up this monster. The body, the main eye, and the eyestalks each have their different armor classes and hit points. The body has the most at 40 HP and an Armor Class of 0. The main eye can take up to 20 points of damage and has an Armor Class of 7, while the eyestalks have the lowest amount of sitting at only 10 HP, though they have an Armor Class of 2. We assume this is due to the stalks being made out of the same “material” as the body itself and that due to how small they are, they are harder to hit. That big giant eye in the middle of the beholder makes a nice target and their eyes must be just a squishy as ours. It’s unclear what happens if you kill the body first, does the Beholder just drift aimlessly in the air or does it sink to the ground? Either way, we assume its movement drops to zero and hopefully its eyes stop shooting at you.

As with all the Beholders, it is the eye rays that make the creature so interesting. In this edition, it can fire off 1d4 eyes per round. The eye rays are as follows:

1. Charm Person
2. Charm Monster
3. Sleep Spell
4. Telekinesis
5. Flesh to Stone Ray
6. Disintegrate Ray
7. Fear Ray
8. Slow Spell
9. Serious Wound Ray
10. Death Ray
11. Anti-Magic Ray

It’s worth noting a few things about the various abilities the eyes have, most of them are based on the spell by the same name, and finding out what it does is straightforward. A couple, however, don’t correspond directly to a spell of the same name, so the DM had to figure out what to do. One of the hardest to locate, we assume for most DMs, was figuring out what a Death Ray did. Luckily, if you opened up the Dungeons & Dragons Boxed Set (1974) and open up the first book, Men & Magic and then stumble upon the Finger of Death spell, it clarifies that it acts like a Death Ray. As far as we can tell, beyond the Death Ray save table, that is the only spot in the Original Dungeons & Dragons box set that has anything to do with Death Rays. We feel for the DMs of old who had to remember that there was a term used twice in another book and had to scrounge that up whenever they were trying to prepare a balloon with eyeballs to kill off their party in a beautiful TPK. 

AD&D - Beholder

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 0/2/7
Move: 3”
Hit Dice: 45-75 hit point
% in Lair: 80%
Treasure Type: I, S, T
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 2-8
Special Attacks: Magic
Special Defenses: Anti-magic ray
Magic Resistance: Special
Intelligence: Exceptional
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Size: L (4’-6’ diameter)
Psionic Ability: Nil

The Beholder graces us with their presence in the Monster Manual (1977) and they no longer look like an awkward balloon! Instead, they look like a weird big insect with plates of chitin and stupid hair. The Beholder is usually found lurking in underground dungeons and is filled with such hate that it will attack you on sight. If you happen to find a Beholder and you are suitably powerful, it may try to negotiate with you, but you should still just plan on fighting it as it really, really wants to eat you. 

If you recall from the previous edition, there was a big question of what happens when you attack a Beholder and destroy its eye versus destroying the body versus just the eyestalks. We are given answers to all of that and what percentage chance you have of actually striking specific parts of the Beholder. A Beholder has two-thirds of it’s hit points in its body and if you knock the body to 0 hit points, the Beholder dies and you have a 75% chance every attack of striking the body. Pretty simple. After that, the main eye has the other third of hit points and you have a 10% chance of striking it, once it is depleted to 0 hit points it can no longer use its main eye on you. The last 15% chance of your hits will be directed at the eyestalks and eyes of the Beholder with a 10% chance of striking the eyestalks and only a 5% chance of hitting the small eyes. Each eyestalk has its own set of hit points, 8 to 12, and if you knock an eyestalk to 0 hit points, it destroys that eyestalk, any hit against the small eyes instantly destroys it and you determine which eyestalk or eye was hit by rolling a d10. 

Of course, that begs the question, what happens when you destroy an eyestalk and the Beholder TPKs the party and you encounter it a few months later with a brand new set of characters. Will it still have a destroyed eyestalk? Luckily, Dragon Magazine #76 (1983) provides an Ecology of the Beholder article and it provides clarifications, descriptions, and the answers to all the important questions about eyestalks, baby beholders, and more. The answer to the eyestalk question is that they regrow 1 eyestalk per week, so yes, that Beholder will have all their eyestalks back when you try to kill them with a new set of characters.

The article also goes on to provide a new description of the center eye and its anti-magic ray. Characters can now see the ray, as it gives off a dull grey light, and more importantly, we now know that the anti-magic ray extends 140 ft. from the middle eye in a cone shape. The Beholder will focus this ray on one target at a time and is intelligent enough to look for spellcaster or, failing that, will target a creature wearing little to no armor as experience has taught them magic-users can’t wear armor and cast their spells. 

Beholders don’t like other creatures, attacking and eating them on sight though that doesn’t mean they don’t have minions to do their bidding. Gargoyles are the minion of choice for Beholders, apparently cause they are too stupid to know any better and too weak to be an actual threat to the Beholder. These minions will serve out their Eye Tyrant’s will, whether it be guarding all the treasure hoard, putting into action a devastating trap or simply gathering up food for the Beholder as they eat a huge amount every day.

As noted previously, the Beholder levitates in the air and can slowly fly in any direction of its choice. This is possible as the Beholder has a magical organ call the levator magnus, which is found in the center of the Beholder with its brain wrapped around the organ to protect it. Nothing can dispel this magical flight of the Beholder, not even another Beholder, and so they make their lairs and homes in complex tunnels that make use of vertical space. One drawback of having such a magical organ is that a Beholder is incredibly susceptible to a strong wind pushing them around, and thus the main reason why Beholders make their home underground away from the wind that will knock them around.

We also get an answer to the burning question that has been on everyone’s mind, how do these spheres of destruction reproduce? Beholders are asexual and lay 1-4 eggs per year as an instinctual habit. When we say “lay” what we really mean is they vomit the foot-long eggs out of their mouths. These eggs are an ugly, pasty white color and smell horrible, thus keeping predators away. Once disgorged from their mouth in some secluded location picked by the Beholder, the eggs will take 2-12 months to hatch. Like the poor sea turtles who are abandoned on a sandy beach, the Beholder eggs are abandoned by its parent to fend for themselves. Of course once the eggs hatch, the Beholder babies can defend themselves a little bit better than a sea turtle. The young will eat the eggshells they hatched from and will have the use of all their eye powers. While a newborn’s bite is nowhere as powerful as an adult’s, their eye ray effects are described as reduced but no mention is made as to how it is reduced. Within a year, they are fully grown and ready to kill you and then feast on your corpse.

As mentioned before, Beholders eat a massive amount and are omnivores, sitting atop the food chain, eating whoever and whatever they please. Human flesh is one of their favorites and, with a cast-iron stomach, they can eat just about anything. What they can’t eat, they just spit out and they use rocks to help their digestion. Due to their hunger being nearly insatiable, Beholders are found few and far between so as to have a big enough hunting ground to satisfy their diets. 

Basic D&D

Armor Class: 0/2/7
Hit Dice: 14**** (see below)
Move: 30' (10')
Attacks: 1 bite + special
Damage: 2-16 + special
No. Appearing:  1(0)
Save As:  Magic-user: 11
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: L, N, O
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value: 5100

In the Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Companion: Book 2 (1984) the Beholder is reintroduced and given a greater description about its abilities and life compared to the previous Monster Manual entries, though the best part about it is that they no longer look like a sad balloon or a weird insect, now they look fearsome and ready to kill. There are a variety of clarifications and simplifications in this new version of the Beholder, ranging from them traveling with their young babies for a year to how far each eye ray’s range is. 

The anti-magic ray, projected from it’s central and large eye, is a continuous beam and has a range of 60 feet. If the Beholder sees someone getting ready to cast a spell, it will turn towards that individual to disrupt the spell, though it’s small eyes can not shoot their rays at that person as the anti-magic ray also disrupts their abilities. Another issue for the Beholder is that it cannot turn its main eye up or down as the description states that the ray cannot be aimed above or below the Beholder. 

Unlike in the previous edition, the Basic version eliminates random chances of hitting different body parts and instead you must declare what you are attacking before you make an attack. Any damage you deal to the eyestalks does not hurt the Beholder, though if you are able to cut an eyestalk off, the DM rolls to determine which eyestalk and the Beholder can no longer use that magical ray against you anymore. Unfortunately for you, the Beholder has a faster recovery time when it comes to regrowing eyestalks and it only takes 2 to 8 days to grow a new one. 

The first variant of the Beholder makes an appearance in the Dungeons & Dragons Master Rules (1985) and is known simply as the Undead Beholder. This abomination resembles a normal Beholder and only a cleric of 25th level or higher can see it for the undead creature that it is. The Undead Beholder is a horror to behold, it has almost double hit points for each part of the creature and it’s Armor Class is even lower than before, making it incredibly difficult to actually hit. 

Not only does it have more health and a better AC, but it can also only be hurt by magical weapons of +2 or better, has all the normal undead immunities, and its main body will regenerate 3 hit points per round. If that isn’t enough, it can change into gaseous form at will and if it is dropped to 0 hit points, it is forced to assume a gaseous form and can not regenerate hit points. If it is forced to take this form due to dropping to 0 hit points, it will hide in complete darkness, and the Undead Beholder keeps many places permanently dark inside of its lair for this purpose, once it is in darkness it can start to regenerate after an hour. There actually is no mention of completely destroying this Undead Beholder, you just have to keep dropping it to 0 hit points and hope you can get in and out inside of an hour. 

Another major change for the Undead Beholder is that the abilities of its eyes are changed. The center eye no longer projects an anti-magic field and while you may be thinking how great that is, it gets replaced by something that is arguably much worse. The Undead Beholder’s main eye now produces a ray of reflection, meaning this ray bounces back a spell onto the individual that casts it, and if your cleric tries to turn undead, they must make a saving throw or run away screaming in fear for 2-12 rounds. So before you think about casting that meteor swarm at the BBEG, take a moment and ponder if you might be killing yourself and all the rest of your party.

Most of the eyestalks all have new abilities and they mostly have to do with undeath and necrotic energy. These new functions include animate dead, continual darkness, two different energy drain rays, a paralysis ray, and before you ask, yes, it still has one little eyestalk that shoots a death spell at you.

2e - Beholder

Climate/Terrain: Subterranean
Frequency: Very Rare
Organization: Solitary
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: Omnivore
Intelligence: Exceptional (15-16)
Treasure: I,S,T
Alignment: Lawful Evil
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 0/2/7
Movement: Fly 3(B)
Hit Dice: 45-75 hp
THAC0: 45-49 hp: 11
               50-59 hp: 9
               60-69 hp: 7
               70+ hp: 5
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 2-8
Special Attacks: Magic
Special Defenses: Anti-magic ray
Magic Resistance: Special
Size: M (4’-6’ diamtere)
Morale: Fanatic (18)
XP Value: 14,000

The Beholder explodes into 2nd edition starting with its appearance in the Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989) and in the Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space Box Set (1989). Various types of Beholder and Beholder-kin are developed throughout this edition and the paranoia that Beholders are well known for is born into their lore. The largest group of Beholders are those created for the Spelljammer setting with vast numbers of different species of Beholders sailing through the Void on their ships, and each Beholder assumes that they are the pinnacle of their species and all other Beholders are disabled or abominations. By our count, there are at least 20 plus different Beholders introduced in 2nd edition and we are going to attempt to talk about as many as we can before we go mad. 

Starting with the Monstrous Compendium, we are introduced to the typical Beholder and the Eye of the Deep, precious little changes for our Beholder except now their anti-magic field extends out from their main eye in a 90-degree cone, making it far more effective when dropping it on their enemies and preventing spellcasters from spell casting. The art is pretty disappointing for such a fearsome and horrifying creature and looks more goofy than terrifying. The next type introduced is the Eye of the Deep, this is a Beholder that lives deep in the oceans and resembles a Beholder if you squint really hard at it. It has a spherical body and a central main eye, and that is the extent of what it shares with others of its kind. It has two large oversized lobster claws it uses to attack it’s prey and has two eyestalks that shoot out rays of hold person and hold monster. Instead of creating an aura of anti-magic, it’s main eye shoots out a blinding light that stuns prey so it can swim up and start biting and tearing with its claws. As if we need more reason to never go into the ocean again.

Jumping over to the Spelljammers setting, we are introduced to the Hive Mother and the Orbi, both of whom are critical to the Beholder’s ability to travel through the void of space. The Orbus Beholders, known as Orbi, are strange white spheres that many assume to be stunted Beholders. They have no function eyes, an oversized central eye that is milky white, and a small mouth void of teeth. The Orbi are incredibly weak compared to common Beholders, though it is the Orbi that allows the Beholder race to travel through space. The Orbi are the conduit through which the energy of the other Beholders on the ship passes through, channeling the energy into a force that can move the ship through the void, they are an organic spelljammer helm. These Orbi will always be in the deepest, most protected parts of their spelljammer ships with the Hive Mother.

The Hive Mother is a massive creature, twice the size of a common Beholder with a mouth large enough to swallow a medium-sized humanoid in one bite. The Hive Mother does not have any eyestalks, but rather has all the eyes as small modules across their body and its central eye is hooded and well protected from attack. This Beholder is essentially the ship’s captain, as it alone has the ability to control all the others on the ship. This creature becomes one with its ship, allowing it to control it and guide it through the void of space.

The next group of Beholders are introduced in the Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix (1990) and this is the beginning of how Beholders take over the Spelljammer setting and you get phrases in the campaign setting books that specifically say things like “If you characters are sick to death of beholders…”. The first Beholder-kin introduced in the appendix are the Directors, followed by the Examiners, Lensmen, Overseer, and finally the Watcher. These Beholder-kin take the typical and normal form of the Beholder and change and morph them into something you may not even recognize as a Beholder.

The Directors are the warrior-caste of Beholders and they are smaller Beholders with three tendrils on its bottom side that allows it to cling to a mount, like a massive centipede, and ride it valiantly into battle. The special eye power it gets is that its main eye can deflect all attacks that take place in front of it, this reduces damage and gives bonuses to its saving throws. It also can retract it’s eyestalks and shoots out different rays like magic missile, burning eye, wall of ice, and other offensive spells.

Examiners are the tool wielding works of the Beholder race, their primary function is the study and creation of magic items. They have no middle eye with a small mouth flanked by four spindly appendages which can be used to grab tools to assist in their work. It has only four spindly eyestalks that can: enlarge/reduce, identify/legend lore, transmute form, and spell reflection. 

The Lensmen have a starfish-like, almost humanoid, body with five limbs and it’s main eye and mouth on the ‘chest’ of this creature. Four of its limbs have hands at the end of them, while the fifth is a long tentacle. It uses these hands to wield weapons, preferably some type of polearm, and they are used for cannon fodder and labor. The middle eye will have only one of the following abilities: emotion, heal, dispel magic, tongues, phantasmal force or protections.

Overseers are one of the strangest variations of the Beholder and they take on the appearance of giant trees with thirteen eyestalks that appear to be branches, three mouths that wrap around the main body, and eight thorn-covered limbs used to hold tools or strike out with. These Beholders are second only to the Hive Mother in the Beholder hierarchy and their eyestalk powers are: Cone of Cold, Dispel Magic, Paralysis, Chain Lightning, Telekinesis, Emotion, Mass Charm, Domination, Mass Suggestion, Major Creation, Spell Turning, Serten’s Spell Immunity, and Temporal Stasis.

The last group are the Watchers and they are the information brokers and the least brave of the Beholder race. They are considered barely above the Lensmen, making them very low in the hierarchy and are renowned for fleeing from battles and using their powers to misdirect would-be attackers. They have a six-foot diameter with three large eyes that circle around its body and on the top of its spherical body is a compound eye with a ring of six eyespots. They are incredibly hard to sneak up on, as you might have guessed with so many eyeballs. The bottom of their sphere body ends in a prehensile pad right behind its mouth and its rasp-like tongue. It’s middle eye powers are true seeing and ESP, advanced illusion and demi-shadow magic, and telekinesis and teleport. The compound eye can cast message, tongues, and suggestion

The next Beholder comes from the Spelljammer’s book Wildspace (1990) and they are known as the Beholder Mage who was born without the ability of its central eye or was once a Beholder who destroyed their central eye. Beholders are known to be powerfully intelligent, but unable to cast magic due to the anti-magic ray of their central eye, crippling them from being able to cast spells. Once that eye no longer functions, a Beholder can begin learning and casting spells to become more powerful than a regular Beholder, though they are often exiled from their societies for being so different.

Followed closely behind, the Death Tyrant from the Lost Ships (1990) finally shambles to life in this edition and has the same abilities as it did in 1st edition. They are created from a dying Beholder when a powerful spell is cast, transforming them from life and into undeath, though this is not something that any Beholder seeks out as they become mindless and forced to follow the set instructions of whoever changed them. 

The Monstrous Manual (1993) consolidates all the Beholders before it and introduces three new Beholders into the family, the Death Kiss, the Gauth, and the Spectator. The Death Kiss, also known as the Eye of Terror, has only a middle eye and in place of eyestalks, it has ten tentacles that attack and latch onto its targets where it drains them of blood. Every time the Death Kiss drains and hurts a creature, it gains electric charges that it can then use on itself to heal lost hit points. 

Next is the Gauth, which can eat the magical essence of an item by either consuming it or by using one of its new tentacle abilities that allow it to drain the magical power of nearby magical items. Items with charges lose a single charge when this ability is activated, whereas permanent magic items like a +1 sword have their magical properties subdued for 1 round. The other abilities it gains for its eyestalks are repulsion, cone of cold, lightning bolt, paralyzation, and cause serious wounds.

Spectators are the last to be introduced and they may be one of the more straightforward of the Beholders, they lack the aggressive xenophobia of other Beholders and can be summoned to act as guards and protect treasure hoards. They have a singular focus and will serve that role for 101 years, though this binding can end early by taking the item being guarded by the Spectator. The Spectator resorts to violence only if given no choice, but otherwise acts very friendly and will try to communicate with others and try to warn them off from taking anything it was summoned to guard, though it doesn’t care if they take something else from the pile that the Spectator was not ordered to guard. They have only four eyestalks and they have the following powers: create food and water, cause serious wounds, paralyzation, and telepathy. 

The Monstrous Manual leaves off with the final bit of information stating that given the plastic nature of the Beholder, mutations are common and abominations are constantly leading to new types of Beholders never seen before. A few that might include Beholders known as Doomspheres, ghostly undead created by explosions, the Astereater, a boulder-like creature with no eyes, the Gorbel, a beholder that explodes when struck, and several other variations.

The final bit of information we will leave on for 2nd edition is that in the book I, Tyrant (1996), it is revealed that there was once a massive city of 2,000 plus Beholders that resided far below the surface. For thousands of years, they existed together, constantly fighting and politicking against each other until eventually, they destroyed each other through civil unrest and their extreme xenophobia of not only other races but of each other. The city was lost for hundreds of years, though a Hive Mother has discovered the city and is attempting to restore it to its former glory.