Beholder

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the beholder (or "eye tyrant") is a fictional monster comprised of a levitating spheroid body with a large fanged mouth and single eye on the front and ten 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 aura, and the other eyes cast different spells (for example, they can disintegrate objects and transmute flesh to stone). 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.

A similar creature is a gas spore, which superficially resembles a beholder, but has no magical ability and explodes violently when punctured.

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. In Spelljammer, beholders were described as piloting large ships of their own kind between solar systems. These ships were powered and navigated by the "orbus" (plural "orbii") race of beholders, who are stunted, albino, and very weak in combat.

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 gases, who is allied with the illithid god Ilsensine.

In the Forgotten Realms

Beholders are especially prominent in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, where they inflitrate and seek to control many sectors of society—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 most of them originate from, with their base of power in the City of the Eye Tyrants, Ooltul.

Beholders in other media

Beholders appear in a number of Dungeons & Dragons computer and video games, most notably the Eye of the Beholder series.

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"). The very similar cacodemon from the Doom first-person shooters was inspired by D&D's beholders and by the cyclopean astral dreadnaught from the Manual of the Planes. A beholder also makes a brief cameo as a grade 11 security guard in the Futurama episode How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back.

References

• Cook, Monte, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. Monster Manual: Core Rulebook III v.3.5. Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast, Inc. See also previous editions.